Lives Rewritten
by Emmeebee
Summary: During a quick trip to the garage before work, Arthur Weasley comes across a body. The discovery, and the ensuing investigation, is going to have a profound impact on the lives of all involved. AU short story.
1. Well, That Wasn't There Last Night

Arthur tiptoed down the stairs, not wanting to wake any of his many children. He loved them all dearly, but they had the rather unfortunate habit of multiplying; where one went, the other half-dozen were sure to follow. This early in the morning, he didn't think he could deal with the noise of one child, let alone all seven of his brood. Just the other day, his sleep-deprived mind had made the mistake of forgetting to put a Muffling Charm on his feet as he passed by the twins' room. He had quickly found himself swarmed by little sleepy-eyed redheads who had emerged both to join in on the fun and to make sure they wouldn't be the target of it. It was therefore no surprise that, despite having remembered the charm that day, reaching the bottom of the staircase successfully filled him with a sense of relief and triumph.

As he crossed the threshold of the kitchen, he was hit with a sudden onslaught of noise and smells. Food sizzled, pots scraped, and the up-and-coming singer Celestina Warbeck belted out a soulful declaration of everlasting love. A cacophony of smells warred against one another, seeking victory over the room but, in truth, merely leaving him unable to identify any of them. "Good morning, Molly."

She responded in kind, checking that the water heating up on the stove wasn't going to overflow before bustling over to kiss him good morning and fetch the beans from the bench beside him.

"Why are you up so early?" Arthur asked as he fixed himself breakfast. "I didn't think you were going out today."

"Isobel Diggory is bringing Cedric over for a play date," she reminded him. "The kids like him, but I swear she's the fussiest woman I've ever met. If there's one vegetable even slightly undercooked or overcooked, she _will_ comment on it in that snotty way of hers. 'Oh, it must be _so hard_ cooking for such a big family. Are you sure you don't need any help? A maid, perhaps?' As if _I_ need help running _my_ household…" Molly trailed off, so enraged at the comments that she was unable to articulate her thoughts. Just when Arthur was about to respond, she continued her rant. "And all she's going to do while the kids are playing is brag incessantly about her son. She always brings any conversation back around to him and how absolutely perfect he is. I admit that he's a good boy, but no child is that good all the time. Besides, even if he were, we wouldn't need to hear about it all the time."

Arthur smiled to himself as he fondly listened to her rant. He was well aware that Isobel was as fussy and opinionated as her pompous husband, and that it rankled Molly to have her housekeeping ability questioned in such a way. To a pureblood woman like Molly, however progressive she otherwise was, that was the most undermining insult a witch could ever receive. It irritated him, too, for her sake, and very little managed to successfully bother Arthur Weasley. It couldn't be easy for his wife to put up with their nosey neighbour whenever Cedric came over to play with the twins. Even when Molly purposefully arranged playdates at a time when Arthur and Amos would be present to provide a wider variety of adult company, the Diggorys seemed to expect that Molly would entertain Isobel while their husbands discussed work. Still, however much he empathised with his wife, he was also aware that Molly was the same as Isobel in many ways. She too seized any opportunity to compliment or praise one of their children, and, even if she was rarely rude enough to verbalise it, her irritation with the other witch had led her to be as critical of Isobel as the older woman was of her.

Yes; he could see why they rubbed one another the wrong way, even if he were inclined to side with his wife.

"I have to go or else I'll be late for work," he said as he finished washing his plate. "I'm sure lunch will be wonderful; it always is."

"Thank you, Arthur. I'll just be glad when Cedric's old enough to come over on his own."

Honestly, Arthur doubted that would ever happen. Isobel, from what he could see, enjoyed visiting them, and would likely want to continue to chat with Molly as the kids grew older. Still, he smiled and made a noise of agreement on his way out the door.

It was the beginning of a lovely day. Last night's dew hadn't yet melted, and the early morning chill made him shiver, but the sky was cloudless and the outline of the sun peeking through the lingering fog promised eventual warmth. Arthur hummed in contentment as he walked towards the garage, wanting to pick up the gadget he'd spent his recent leisure time trying to dissect so that he could spend some of his lunch break playing around with it. He still didn't know what it was for, and was filled with a feeling of incessant excitement at the prospect of uncracking the mystery of the so-called 'Rubik's cube'.

His foot whacked into something, sending him reeling forward as shooting pain raced through his big toe. Arms flailed wildly as he stumbled, fighting to right himself before he fell.

 _What was that?_ he wondered, turning his gaze to the ground behind him.

A body lay on the grass. His face was covered with scratches and bite marks, and dried blood coated his chest, which looked like several huge chunks had been viciously ripped from it. Frozen blue eyes stared up at the foggy sky; it was almost as if he were lost in thought, but Arthur had seen enough dead bodies during the war to know better.

Arthur's wand zipped around as he cast protective spells around himself and the body. He didn't know how it had gotten there, but he had to assume that it was a warning of some kind. To stop being so publicly interested in Muggle culture, perhaps. Leaving it in the middle of a bubble of simmering magic that would keep anyone else away, he darted back towards the house, surveying the area for intruders as he went. He was out of shape and practice after years of peace wherein his greatest worry was monitoring his children, but his mind instinctively gave him the motions to follow. _It's like riding a bike,_ he thought dryly, remembering the Muggle phrase he'd come across in a novel.

"Molly," he said as he entered the house, his voice stressed but quiet, "there's a body in the garden. Something's torn into it. Make sure no one enters or leaves the house; I'm going to Floo Amelia so she can dispatch Aurors."

She was instantly alert. "Who – ?"

"I don't know; I didn't recognise him."

Molly cast a charm so that the hotplates would turn themselves off when done and headed to the base of the stairs to set up watch. She had warded the windows just days prior after George had jumped out of his on a dare, so the only way for any of the children to leave the house would be for them to pass through her watchful gaze. While she cleaned a bowl from her vantage point, Arthur threw the fine silver powder into the fireplace and, after watching the flames turn a vibrant green, clearly stated the address and stuck his head into its bricked confines.

He remained in transit for a few minutes, presumably while Amelia Bones received notification of his attempted connection and went through the process of approving or declining it. While most fireplaces didn't have the option to refuse Floo calls, Ministry offices had had that function built in so that workers could maintain a decent level of privacy without needing to rely on assistants or house-elves.

Finally, the flames flared up again, and his head emerged in a small, neat office. Filing cabinets that he knew to be bigger on the inside lined one of the walls, with little signs on the front of each one identifying the kind of case that could be found within it. The floor was almost completely covered by a large navy rug, its stately air contrasting with the kitsch pink dot painting hanging on the wall. From conversations with the witch at Ministry functions, Arthur knew that it was a present from Amelia's niece after her first art class. It was the kind of sentimental memento that people in Amelia's position tended to opt for; while it was special enough to be meaningful, it didn't advertise the identities of her beloveds to passers-by. A simple yet impressive desk stood near the window, which was displaying an image of heavy rainfall, complete with soft and melodious sound effects. Behind it sat the Head of the DMLE herself, who had looked up from a roll of yellowing parchment upon his entrance.

"Good morning, Amelia."

"Arthur. This is unexpected." Her tone was polite, but he caught the implicit connotation; she trusted that he would not have disturbed her without a good reason, and would be displeased if he proved her wrong.

"I found a body in my front yard this morning," he said bluntly. "I couldn't recognise him. It looked like it was a vicious death; scratches, bites, the whole shebang."

Amelia's wand was already in her hand, poised to cast the spell that would inform the Aurors, as she asked, "Has it been sectioned off?"

"I cast protection and deterrence charms, and Molly is keeping the kids inside the house."

"Thank you. You'll be expected to remain home for the rest of the day so that you're available for questioning. I'll send the appropriate paperwork over to your department so that they know where you are. Please tell Molly someone will be there to investigate shortly."

"Thank you," he said. As he pulled his head back through the fireplace, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a fluffy silver llama. Almost immediately, the sound of Amelia relaying the message to her Patronus was replaced by the all-too familiar sound of a complaining child.

"But he's not there," Percy said empathically, "and Fred told me he'd let him out if I didn't use magic to help him prank Ron. I told him I wasn't allowed to, of course, but now Scabbers is missing and it _had_ to be him."

"I'll help you look for him later, but right now we have to stay inside."

"But _Mum_ , what if a cat got him? Don't the Diggorys have a cat? If it wandered over here…"

"Percy," Arthur said, and the boy visibly slumped with the knowledge that his father's uncharacteristically stern tone meant support for a retrieval mission wouldn't be forthcoming. "I'm sorry your rat is missing. We can ask Fred if he knows anything, but your mother is right; we'll look for him later. There is evidence that a crime occurred last night, so we all have to stay inside until the Aurors have finished searching the area."

That piqued the young boy's interest. It was more information than his mother had given him, and the idea of a _crime_ occurring in his own backyard had the kind of morbid but all-encompassing allure of a major Quidditch accident. Something _bad_ had happened, and not in the sense that breaking school rules or teasing siblings was bad. While part of him was repelled by it, the other part of him was fascinated with the drama of it all. "What happened? Was anybody hurt?"

His parents exchanged an uncertain look. Neither of them wanted to lie to him, but they didn't think he was ready for the full truth, either. The knowledge that someone had died so close to where he'd slept would be traumatising enough; they didn't want him to have that playing on his mind as they waited for more news.

"Yes," Molly finally replied. "Someone was hurt rather badly."

"Will they be alright?"

Arthur's expression was tender as he knelt down beside the twelve-year-old and said, as gently as he could, "No, I'm afraid he won't be. Percy, why don't you go read a book in your room? I'll keep an eye on what's going on outside and let you know if anything happens."

Percy frowned. "I'd rather stay downstairs."

"You can wait with us," Molly suggested. "Why don't we play a game of chess? I need to let the Diggorys know not to come today, but you could set it up while I owl Mrs Diggory."

Percy nodded before running to fetch the chess set, wanting to minimise the amount of time spent out of his parents' company. The sound of his footsteps reverberated through the room, only quietening when the hissed whispers not to wake his siblings reached his ears.

* * *

A/N: Written for Lady Isabelle Black's Background Tragedy Turned Truth challenge and for the If You Dare Challenge for the prompt 'children'. I've been pottering away at this since February, so it feels wonderful to finally start posting this.


	2. The Ministry Goes Back on Itself a Lot

A/N: Thank you to everyone who followed, favourited, or reviewed the first chapter. I've decided to try putting this up here so I can respond to reviews before, rather than after, the next chapter. Common sense things that didn't seem like common sense at the time…

This story currently has six chapters and an epilogue, so I'm hoping to finish uploading it by the end of July at the latest. It's essentially finished, apart from the final scenes of the last chapter and a lot of editing and reworking.

Regarding this chapter, there's a Buffy reference hidden inside it (massive hint: I felt like singing when I put it in), and there's another deviation from canon in relation to Cordelia's family. I'll explain the specifics at the end of the chapter but, essentially, my brother and I misinterpreted something we read a few months ago and I prefer our misreading of it for sentimental reasons and because it just sounds cool.

To the guest reviewer: Thanks! Haha, yeah, Lockhart's… yeah. Good point about the fairness and humility. I think Cedric did still get the fairness from (this version of) his mother to some degree; I see Isobel as someone who is considerate and well-meaning, but who can be overbearing and short-sighted when it comes to talking about Cedric or giving her opinion to her friends. The humility had to have come from elsewhere, though; maybe it was from playing with his friends or from hanging out with her (extended and so less biased) family. I haven't touched on their relationship again as it doesn't impact the main plot, but I'll see if I can work that into the epilogue.

* * *

The search hadn't revealed a probable cause of death or any suspects; the only things that were certain was that there were a lot of paw prints in the surrounding area and that the distribution of blood suggested that the crime had occurred on site. Unfortunately for Elizabeth Jensen, the corpse itself, while a lot more revealing, raised more questions than it answered. The gaping hole in his torso appeared to have been caused by a large set of teeth, suggesting that a stray were-beast or other large predator might have been behind it, but it wasn't a full moon, and the amount of blood was wildly inconsistent with the size of the body or the wounds. Her leading hypothesis was that he had been set upon by a magical creature of some sort but that a witch or wizard had stepped in before the wounds could kill him. However, that didn't fully account for the lack of blood – the human could have cleaned up some of it, she supposed, but then it didn't make sense for them not to have finished that job as well – and the likelihood of two attackers was slim. She doubted two separate entities would have attacked the Burrow on the same night, but the idea of a witch or wizard working with something capable of causing that level of devastation seemed equally implausible.

 _Unless it was a mercy killing,_ she thought, but her gut told her that that wasn't the case. She might not have been an Auror for long, but she'd quickly learned to trust her instincts. Sometimes, they were responding to things that her conscious brain hadn't noticed.

The Aurors had found two wands in his pocket, yet he had failed to fight off his assailant. They had approached Ollivander, hoping that he might be able to identify the wands' owner, but he had revealed that they'd belonged to two wizards who had both died during the war.

And, finally, there was the mystery of the missing finger; it was an old wound, long since healed, but it wasn't as if she could go around asking people if they knew of any men who were both missing a finger and missing from society.

As much as she hated the ineptitude it signified, she resorted to calling in her old supervisor to see if he had any ideas on the matter. As qualified as Beth was, he had much more experience, and had a keen eye for making connections between seemingly unrelated things; he had, to be truthful, been the person who had inspired her to enter the Auror Department in the first place.

"I'll have a look at him," Kingsley told her upon his arrival at the scene. "You should go for a walk to clear your head; Stewart said you've been here for hours."

"Alright," she responded, so used to following his direction and tutelage that she didn't even think to object, "but let me know if you need any information about what we've done so far."

"I will," he assured her as they parted. The older Auror headed for the crime scene while Beth started on a lap of the property's perimeter.

Distancing herself from the scene did her good. All morning, she'd been focused on completing the investigation as effectively and swiftly as possible so that they could stop infringing on the Weasleys' privacy and peace. It had monopolised her thoughts all morning; even when she'd taken a break for lunch, the knowledge that the family was still cooped up inside had prayed on her mind like a mosquito. Kingsley taking temporary custodianship of the case gave her the breathing space to pause and swat it away. The critter would no doubt find her again when she finished her walk, but she was determined to enjoy the brief reprieve.

The walk was pleasant but, sure enough, the mosquito of concern and pressure returned as she looped back around and made her way over to Kingsley. The shocked look on his face as he stared at the body didn't do anything to relieve it.

"What's wrong? What is it?"

The man sounded dazed as he shakily replied, "I recognise him."

"I'm so sorry. Was he a friend of yours?"

"It's Peter Pettigrew, Beth. Do you remember the story I told you when you first started training?"

Recognition flooded through her at the name. _Everyone_ knew who Peter Pettigrew was. She could still recall the day the papers broke the story of his death. Still nursing from their illicit post-war celebrations, she and her friends had been chatting about their futures – careless for the first time in years – when the usual fleet of owls had swooped into Kjelle Academy's dining hall to drop off the morning mail. Casual discussions had quickly dissolved into horrified silence as students read the front page and realised the severity of the events that had occurred just the day before.

Then, the media storm had hit. The _Daily Prophet_ published articles on anything they could think of; Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, the Muggles, the street, the relationship between any and all of them, and then, finally, the posthumously-awarded Order of Merlin.

It had been moulded into a cautionary tale for young recruits by the time Beth entered Auror training. Supervisors had told their trainees about the valiant but foolish Gryffindor's death in an attempt to reinforce the importance of doing one's best to acquire back up before entering a dangerous situation and to warn them of the risk of well-meaning civilians trying to take the law into their own hands.

"Of course. He tried to avenge his friends' deaths but ended up dying in the attempt. All the Aurors found of him was his finger. But the other wounds aren't six years old; they were a few hours' old at most when I got here."

"He must have survived that night somehow and gone into hiding. But why didn't he reveal himself to the Ministry once Black was safely locked away?"

She pulled out her case diary and self-inking quill and started to jot down the key points as she thought it through, knowing that Kingsley would give her time to formulate her own theories before sharing his. "Maybe he thought that returning would backfire on him. If it was revealed that Black didn't kill him, the Wizengamot would have pushed to have the sentence lessened or overruled entirely. You know how they are; they accepted Crouch's verdict on Black because they had no other choice, but they hate the idea of having a pureblood heir locked away in Azkaban. If there had been even the slightest chance of him being released, they'd have grabbed it."

"And Pettigrew would have been in danger once more," Kingsley finished for her. "Black wouldn't have liked being imprisoned for something he hadn't finished, and he'd have the skill to make his second attempt look like an accident."

"So Black tried to kill Pettigrew, thought he succeeded, and went to Azkaban because he felt he had nothing to live for after his master's death, and Pettigrew was alive the whole time?" After leaving the words hanging between them for a moment, she added, "Something doesn't feel right about it."

"I know. Pettigrew could have easily gone to Dumbledore or McGonagall; even if they'd just hidden him away, it would have been safer to be guarded by them than to live nomadically. However, the thing that you need to understand, the thing that nobody really likes to say since what we thought to be his death, is that Peter Pettigrew wasn't as smart as his friends. He was street smart, but he wasn't exceptionally bright. He might not have even considered going to Hogwarts – or he might have dismissed the idea because he thought he'd be safer on his own. We can't base this on what a wise person would have done."

"Alright; let's just say he thought it would be safer to stay on his own," Beth conceded. "That still doesn't tell us what happened to him last night."

"I don't know," Kingsley admitted. "I've never seen anything like it."

Beth fiddled with her quill restlessly. "Well," she finally said, "I – Well, I do have one idea. I didn't want to have to use it because it won't hold up in court, but it might give us a lead. I've been looking into the scope and potential uses of viewing memories in a Pensieve in order to see whether there might be a place for them in our line of work. Witnesses can miss crucial pieces of information for the simple reason that they're looking the wrong way or don't realise something's significance. If accepted, this could revolutionise how we investigate crimes. We could literally see everything that was visible at the time. However, there's still the complication of whether or not an accomplished Occlumens can alter their memories without being detected, and the Wizengamot is never going to accept something that might call their word into question. Most of them would see it as offensive and undermining. Still, I think it could be revolutionary if I got it to work." Pausing for breath after her passionate tirade, she forced herself to recalibrate and refocus. She was so passionate about the topic and so used to presenting ideas and theories to Kingsley so that he could analyse them through the lens of his past experiences that it had seemed to all fall out unbidden. "Anyway, we could ask Arthur to duplicate his memories from last night so we can try to see the incident. I'm not sure whether we'd be able to physically leave his bedroom – it's hard to get a hold of Pensieves for research purposes, so I'm still trying to establish how far you can wander – but it might give us some new insight into the case."

"I think it's a great idea. Besides, anything's better than nothing right now. Do you have access to one at the moment?"

"I know somebody who would lend us one," she replied coyly, not wanting to reveal her benefactor's name. Pensieves were rare and incredibly powerful tools; their main use among the nobility was to dissect past meetings piece by suspicious piece or to surreptitiously provide useful information to allies. Unless the person was renowned or trusted enough to be politically immune, admitting to having one generally resulted in widespread suspicion and, as a result, sources suddenly becoming less talkative. "I can go and see if they can spare it."

At Kingsley's sound of acquiescence, she left the protected area and Disapparated with a loud _crack_ that reverberated through the quiet fields. Re-materialising in front of the ivy-covered walls of Fawley Manor, she briskly strode up the path to the wrought-iron front gates. One thing that had always amazed her about her friend Cordelia's home was how it managed to smoothly blend pureblood opulence with an uncanny sense of homeliness. The entertaining spaces designed for political guests tended to be more in keeping with the traditional bland decorating schemes, but the private wings and even the exterior gave off a sense of quaint warmth. Beth hadn't been to many other manors – she'd attended a ball at Nott Manor with Delia once, but that was the extent of her basis for comparison – but it still seemed uncharacteristically casual.

 _Of course, having the money to buy and sell cities like investment properties does tend to give you the political clout to do as you please,_ she thought.

Raising her wand, she tapped out the familiar pattern on the brickwork beside the gate. Recognising both the sequence and her magical signature, the bricks shifted to the side obediently, unearthing the lever that had been hidden behind them. Beth pulled the lever and watched the intricate gates slowly swing open before hastening through the entrance, aware that the brickwork would already be rotating back around to conceal the lever, and that the gates would close shortly thereafter.

Alerted by the wards, a house-elf met her at the front door, a neat little tunic emblazoned with the family crest hanging from his shoulders. From what Cordelia had said, the Fawleys made sure their house-elves had good working conditions; clothing them had involved giving them the fabric and asking them to make something for themselves, thus allowing them to wear clothing without triggering the magic that would free them.

"Miss Beth. Is you looking for Miss Delia?"

"Yes, Arton," she replied. "Do you know where she is?"

"She's – "

"Here, actually," Delia cut in as she descended the grey marble stairs and joined them in the entryway. "It's been too long. Are you staying for tea?"

"Not today, I'm afraid. I'm actually here on official business; there's been a bit of an issue at work, and I was wondering whether Kingsley Shacklebolt and I could borrow your Pensieve to examine a witness' memory. We're at our wits' end with this one."

"Of course you can. I assume I don't need to tell you the importance of not letting him know who you got it from."

-l-r-

"If just we knew when it happened," Kingsley said as they sat on the grass near where Peter Pettigrew's body was found, waiting for something they couldn't pinpoint in either time or space.

Beth compulsively nibbled on her fingernail; she'd been trying to wean herself out of the habit for months, but then cases like this would crop up and she'd find herself securely off the bandwagon once again. "I'm just glad we didn't wind up in Arthur's dreams. That happened once; I was exploring the impact that subconsciousness had on the clarity of the memory, but I wound up in some crazy dream with dancing demons and killer bunnies. It was a shock when I was expelled from the dream and back into my test subject's bedroom. It must be something to do with your dreams being your reality when you're experiencing them, I think. I'm planning on experimenting by entering the same memory at multiple points to try to identify whether dreams occur in real time and if delaying the point of entry until after the dream has started will catapult you into the dream or the outside world."

"You could approach the Unspeakables with this," Kingsley pointed out, idly watching a fox stalk through the grass. The light from their wands illuminated patches of its brilliant red fur. He'd have to warn Molly and Arthur about it when he got back; they wouldn't like the kids running around unsupervised near it. "They're always looking at new entryways into that sort of thing."

It was a widely known secret that the Unspeakables welcomed suggestions from the public about research topics, although nobody knew whether or not they ever took any of them on. People tended to devise their own theories of what the Unspeakables were doing, with some proposing that they were looking into the nature of magic itself while others insisted that it was a conspiracy to hide the fact that they were really Ministry-sanctioned assassins. Kingsley liked to think that his perspective on the matter was reasonable, but, then again, he supposed that everyone did.

"I'd rather see how far I can get on my own," she admitted. "If I hand this over to them, I may never know what they've found or even if they've taken it on. Besides, it's a nice challenge for me. It helps me get my mind off of the macabre of the cases we face and onto something that may end up helping us all."

Kingsley was about to respond when his attention was diverted by the sounds of a scuttle. "The fox's caught lunch," he commented, diverting his eyes. Foxes had always disconcerted him, and he doubted that watching one feed on or toy with another animal would help him with that.

"Great. I wish I could right about now." They'd brought snacks with them for the stakeout, but they'd underestimated how long the process would take. Kingsley grunted his agreement, but Beth barely noticed it; her attention had been caught by a strange twisting shape appearing behind the wizard. "Kingsley, behind you."

"Yeah, I know. I don't need to see the fox – "

"I'm not talking about the fox."

His instincts kicking in, he quickly turned in place. He was met with the sight of Peter Pettigrew lying on the ground, his torn body convulsing as if in the middle of a fit. Grimacing at the scene, he watched as the man's nose shrunk to human proportions and tufts of grey hair disappeared from all over his face and arms. These little alterations continued until the body, looking as it had when they'd originally found it, suddenly stilled.

The fox appeared to be just as shocked as he was, growling low in its throat as it stumbled back with a series of quick little steps.

"3:16am," Beth said as she, looking as sick as he felt, wrote the information down in her case diary. "We'll come back just before this next time and keep a closer eye out in the lead up."

"What did you see?"

The younger witch hesitated, running through the events carefully in her head as she attempted to make sense of them. It had all happened so fast that all she'd had time to do at the time was note down the facts as they presented themselves. After a few moments, she answered, "It looked like he was transforming. I didn't see what he started as, but he definitely changed form and size."

The gravity of the situation settling over them like fog, they were silent as they left the memory and re-entered it at about 3am. Neither of them felt particularly talkative. They had initially sought to amuse themselves until something showed up, but it felt so much more real the second time around. They had caught the scent, and they had seen the death, and neither of them could focus on mindless chatter anymore.

That time around, they noticed the rat scampering around in the grass, sniffing the ground as if looking for something. They watched, unable to interfere, as the fox pounce on the small rodent, ripping into its prey with its claws and teeth. They saw the flailing rat go still before starting to grow, getting bigger until the fox dropped it in surprise, and morph back into the shape of a man.

"What was he doing here?" Kingsley mused, his voice shaky, when their voices finally returned.

"Spying, maybe? But why here, and why at night?" The young woman's look of horror intensified as she put the pieces together. "When I first got here, one of the boys mentioned that his rat had gone missing. He wanted to make sure we didn't kill it if we came across it. It mightn't be him, but…"

Just like he always had, Kingsley instantly knew what she meant – and why she was so disconcerted at the idea. Thinking about the innocent young boy who had accompanied Arthur Weasley to the Ministry on more than one occasion, he spat out, "But the boy's _twelve_. Are you telling me a grown adult lived in his room without him knowing for _years_?"

-l-r-

He wasn't what she had expected. For the most part, he looked like a typical Azkaban inmate. His hair was long and lank, and his tattered clothes hung off him as if he were a child playing dress-up in his father's wardrobe. A hint of madness lay behind his steel grey eyes. Yet, despite that, something about him was distinctly abnormal. She was used to seeing prisoners, their minds twisted from the extended exposure to the Dementors, rant and rail nonsensically as their eyes darted every which way. But Sirius Black sat calmly in his seat, his steady gaze locked on hers. He had seemed relieved when the Dementors had first left the room, having been replaced by human guards so that she didn't have to suffer their effects, and had reacted violently to the thought of Pettigrew being alive until she told him that he had since died, but he hadn't shown any sign of human emotion since. It was unnerving; she was used to reading people's body language as a part of her job, to treating it as another clue to be observed and assessed, but he just kept watching her right back. Given the sort of upbringing she knew he had to have had, she couldn't help but wonder what he was picking up from her.

Finally breaking the silence, she asked, "What happened that day in the alleyway?"

He didn't even have to ask which alleyway she meant. "We got into a duel, the street blew up, and it appeared as if he died."

"Do you know how he escaped?" He continued to stare at her, silent and unresponsive. Perturbed and feeling almost desperate to get some information out of him, she instead asked, "Was he an Animagus?"

Black cocked his head to the side. His shaggy black hair swung in response to the movement, partially obscuring his face from view. The memory of the black retriever who had been her companion throughout childhood flashed to the front of her mind. She wondered if he'd had any pets as a child; it didn't seem like the type of thing his parents would have encouraged, but the resemblance was uncanny if he had never been in continued close contact with a dog before. "Why would you ask that?'

"It's a valid theory," she replied simply, not wanting give away any more information than she already had.

"Yet it had to have come from somewhere. Was he registered?"

"Evidently not." She paused, giving him space to respond, but he once again refrained from speaking. Reigning herself to the fact that he was going to continue to be uncooperative and that she would have to either pretend to play by his rules or give up on the game entirely, she added, "We found evidence that suggests he was an unregistered Animagus. Given what I've heard about your childhood, I assume that the rest of your friendship group was also involved." She was quickly starting to grow sick of silence and veiled statements. It had frustrated her since childhood, but the interview was worse than ever before. Reaching for straws, she continued with, "You knew the man better than almost anybody else. Why didn't he go to Albus Dumbledore for protection?"

Black shrugged. "Perhaps he was afraid I would find out he had survived and try to finish the job."

"Because you'd already betrayed one of his best friends and had tried to kill him once before." Something flickered in his eyes at that; something about the memory of the Potters' deaths had gotten through to him. A question came to her mind unbidden. It seemed stupid and unnecessary – they already knew the answer; he was vengeful and didn't like loose ends – but she nevertheless found herself asking, "And why would he have thought you would have gone after him? The reports state that _he_ was the one who tracked _you_ down all those years ago."

"The reports were wrong. I was the one to find him. He hid for a few days, but then he messed up and I found him."

"Why?"

A filthy look infused with murderous rage crossed his face. Even if he had been genuine about trying to escape the confines of his family in his youth, he'd obviously failed; perceptiveness and unflappability were clearly not the only Black traits he'd inherited. "Because he needed to die."

"And why was that?"

"You're not going to believe anything I say," he replied. "Why should I bother trying?"

"Because I'm more likely to have an open mind than anybody else who ever has or will come here to visit you. Just try me. Why did he need to die?"

"Because he betrayed them."

Beth leaned forward, feeling like they were on the brink of something momentous, where the slightest movement might tip them over from speculation to certainty. Part of her brain, deep down, prickled up its ears as it sensed where the conversation might be heading, but she forced herself to ignore it, instead focusing on the man in front of her. "He betrayed _whom_ , exactly?"

-l-r-

The wizarding world was abuzz with the news. It had started off as a demure announcement from a Ministry official who had looked suitably awkward and contrite, but the papers had jumped on the story, quickly refashioning it into a major news event. The Ministry's few statements on the matter indicated that they thought it had grown disproportionately big, but the laypeople all clamoured for more information about the scandal. Before long, everybody and their pet knew about it.

Sirius Black was declared innocent. He was released from prison. He had been wrongly convicted in the worst way. He had been the _victim_ , subjected to his traitorous erstwhile friend's attack and to the Ministry's ineptitude and disdain.

No one much cared what the Ministry thought acceptable levels of reporting on the situation would be.

They all expected an outburst. As a rule, the Blacks weren't known to take affronts lightly, and Gryffindors weren't heralded for their patience or clear-headedness. The wizarding world sat on the edge of their metaphorical seats as they waited for swift and precise vengeance. The only question in their minds was when it would come and whether it would be political or physical.

Their expectations were wrong.

Days passed, and no one heard from the recently exonerated convict. Some had expected him to shake it off and catch up with old classmates. Others had thought he would drink himself into a stupor at the pub. More still had posited that he would take up the mantle of Lord Black and use it to go on a rampage, taking down anybody and everybody who had been even remotely involved in his sentencing. Yet, when it came to it, it was as if he were still locked away in prison, removed from the public eye.

Until, of course, it suddenly wasn't.

* * *

A/N: The misinterpretation was that we thought we'd read somewhere that the Fawleys had sold a city, when that wasn't in fact the case. Still, it substantially impacted the amount of power I see them as having, and I was too attached to the idea of them just casually passing on the ownership of a city to rework it.

The BtVS reference was the comment about dancing demons and killer bunnies, both of which are rather hilariously mentioned in the episode Once More, With Feeling.


	3. The Ritual That Didn't Work

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited, or reviewed this.

To Sara: Thank you so much! However, I must admit that that part of the plot wasn't my idea; the Background Tragedy Turned Truth Challenge had some fairly specific plot points. I'm going to put a brief summary of its specifications at the end of the epilogue for whoever is interested.

* * *

Sirius wasn't conscious of the passage of time. Frankly, he wasn't even conscious for much of that time. Azkaban didn't exactly create an environment conducive to sound sleep, so he had arrived at Grimmauld Place bone-tired and ready to collapse, and had proceeded to do just that. Sleep had come swiftly, offering him a long-awaited reprieve from his waking nightmares. Despite all of the bad memories that were associated with his childhood home, waking up in his bed with those posters surrounding him, a sign of a direct rebellion against simple foes, still reminded him of a much happier time. He loathed his family and that house, but his suffering had been much more straightforward back then. It hadn't had the nuances that came from fighting on the frontline of a civil war, the dark edge that had sent him spiralling forever downwards until it misery replaced comfort as his norm.

Looking around the painfully familiar room, those nuances all came rushing back to him like a beloved pet.

James Potter was dead. Lily Potter was dead. Peter Pettigrew had betrayed them all, and now he was dead too. Remus Lupin was alone. Sirius had lost years of his own life.

The memory of his friends' bodies, perfect but for their lifelessness, came to him unbidden. As soon as he'd received the notification that someone had breached their wards, he had Apparrated to the little cottage he'd bought down the road from theirs and, after swiftly swinging himself onto his motorcycle, made his way over to their house. It had all been part of the contingency plan that Lily, despite knowing the improbability of ever needing it, had insisted they make. Apparation could be fatal for babies, and it hadn't been safe for them to connect to the Floo Network, so their escape plan had been to fly Harry out of the house by broom or by bike. But he had been too late. The moment he'd arrived there, he had sensed something was wrong; he had _known_ it. It had felt like he was suspended in mid-air as he made his way up the driveway and into the quiet house – but he had come crashing down the moment he'd seen James' body.

The rest of it – how he'd fought sobs as he ran through the house, as he reached the nursery, as he was confused by Voldemort's body and then gutted by Lily's and then relieved by Harry's distressed wails – was a blur to him now, but he remembered the agony he'd been in in those moments. Their safe haven had been breached, and it had all been his fault.

And he hadn't even been able to attend the joint funeral service that had been held in their honour.

-l-r-

It took him a few more days to reconcile himself with the fact that he was, at least physically, free. Joy and relief warred with guilt and condemnation; Azkaban was hellish and twisted, but he deserved that torment after everything that had happened to his friends. He'd never been the good or kind member of their group; Remus had been the kind one, and James had grown up to be good once he'd gotten over his ego, and Peter had seemed to be spiteful but ultimately harmless, but Sirius had always just been the reckless, haunted charmer who won people's admiration but not their respect. Out of the four of them, he would have thought himself the least deserving of survival. Now he knew that to be false, of course, but it didn't quench the pain that the _good_ , loyalman who had been a brother to him and the brilliant, compassionate woman he'd learnt to see as a sister had died while he had survived. However much he loathed Azkaban and what it stood for, a small part of him felt that he deserved it. There, at least, the matter of his flagellation was well attended to.

Harry's life would be poorer for not knowing his parents.

 _Harry_.

-l-r-

After all weight he'd lost throughout his imprisonment, none of his old clothes fit him anymore. Staring at the robes he'd carelessly thrown on the bed, discarding them like an unhelpful card in a game of rummy, Sirius struggled to remember the clothes alteration spell. _It's something to do with… Apto? D_ _ēminuere?_

Twirling the wand the Ministry official had bought for him as a small and insufficient means of recompense,he instead cast a quick Illuminating Charm just to test out his ability. Feeling magic flow through him again after so many years filled him with euphoria, breaking through the melancholy and the depression for the briefest moment of time with an overwhelming sense of coming home. Suddenly reinvigorated, he immediately turned his wand on the robes and, instinctively, shouted out the incantation for the spell he'd been struggling to remember only moments before. He watched as the assorted garments contracted upon themselves, the fabric bunching up and smoothing out and dropping several sizes until it looked like it would be a much snugger fit.

Once he was wearing the one that made him least look like a gaunt mess of a man, he wandered outside into the sunshine for the first time since his release. The light irritated his eyes, forcing him to squint against its brightness from his place on the small doorstep. It was tempting to turn around and go back inside the house, back to the land of darkness and gloom, where the pain was dull and visceral rather than sharp and sensory.

But he had business to attend to and, as he didn't yet have an owl, he would have to go in to town to do it. He'd decided to try Hogsmeade first and then to work things out from there. Rosmerta should be able to get a message to Dumbledore for him, and The Three Broomsticks should, at that time of day, be quiet enough that his presence wouldn't cause a stir.

He was just preparing to attempt Apparation, hoping that he wouldn't splinch himself in the process, when he caught sight of the half-giant looking openly out of place as he loitered across the street. As soon as his eyes finished adjusting to the glare, he made his way across the road to stand beside the man. His old acquaintance swiftly pulled him into an almost bone-crushing hug.

A surprised and slightly protesting, "Hagrid," was all he managed to get out before he was interrupted by an incessant sobbing that shook them both like an uncooperative rattle toy.

"Sirius, I'm so sorry."

"It's alright, Hagrid," he replied, his breathing laboured for want of oxygen. "Only… could you loosen up a bit? It's kind of – "

"Right. 'Course." The half-giant loosened his arms and stepped back, resting his large hands on the lanky man's shoulders instead, looking unwilling to completely relinquish the contact.

"Why are you here?" Sirius asked as he saw the other wizard prepare to speak; while he cared deeply for the groundskeeper who had always welcomed Remus as a son, it wasn't the time for apologies or chitchat. His only goal was to locate and retrieve Harry before anyone noticed him, and then to return back to the solitude of Grimmauld Place. Social interaction and outings would eventually be inevitable, especially once the young boy was living with him, but he planned to ease his way back into it in small and sporadic doses. Rubeus Hagrid was, despite his endless good intentions, not the sort of person who let anybody ease their way back into anything; he either didn't like a person or he was willing to spill everything to them at a moment's notice.

Hagrid clumsily wiped away his tears and cleared his throat before, his voice still choked with emotion, replying, "On lookou'; Dumbledore's orders. He didn' know yer address, but Remus worked ou' the street from things yeh'd said at school. He set up a watch so there'd be someone here when yeh came back out."

Sirius couldn't help but feel irritated at the mention of the Headmaster's name. It was unwarranted, perhaps, given that the man had had no reason to believe he was innocent and every reason to believe he was the traitor. Nevertheless, he wished the wizard had paid this much attention to confirming his guilt in the first place. Still, he supposed it gave him an opening; Hagrid wasn't as tight-lipped as the Headmaster, and so the half-giant was much more likely to give him information. "How's Harry?"

"Er – I don' know. We – McGonagall, Dumbledore an' meself, tha' is – left 'im at… Well, we lef' 'im where Dumbledore said ter leave 'im, an' Dumbledore's bin keepin' an eye on 'im ever since." Hagrid paused before, as if confiding a great secret, adding, "I'm not good at blendin' in, yeh see."

"And where was that?"

"Where we lef' 'im? Yeh'll have ter ask Dumbledore tha' one. He swore me to secrecy."

"Why?" Sirius asked, genuinely perplexed. "Any magical family would recognise him. A baby that looks like James and Lily shows up a few days after – after they die? People are going to notice."

Hagrid hesitated. "Well, I still shouldn' say this, but yeh'd work it out anyway. Harry's not with – " He cut himself off and surveyed the park around them to check that nobody was listening in before lowering his voice and whispering conspiratorially, " _our folk_. His relatives took 'im in."

-l-r-

The first owl he sent was to Remus Lupin. It was a spell fired off into the dark; he hadn't had the presence of mind to ask Hagrid about him, and Hagrid hadn't thought to mention it, so he didn't even know if the werewolf was still alive. Fortunately for him, he didn't need an address to send a letter.

Apprehension flooded through him as he attached the envelope to the bird's feet and, with a quick scratch behind her ear, bid her leave. It was the moment of truth; if she flew away, it meant that Remus was still alive and contactable. The tensest moment of his life passed as the owl merely stared up at him with big yellow eyes. Then, a wave of cool relief flooded through him when she gave his hand a reproving peck and finally flew away.

The second owl was bound for Albus Dumbledore. The letter it bore requested a meeting at the Headmaster's earliest convenience. It was short and curt, but its careful wording did not reveal the extent of Sirius' ire. The ex-convict was almost certain that any undercurrents of rudeness would be misattributed to his personality and the length of time he'd spent without properly socialising anyway.

The third owl bore a letter for Arthur Weasley, thanking him and trying to arrange a time to catch up, and it was this owl that was the first to return. The response was a brief but genuine invitation for Sirius to visit the Burrow whenever it suited him. According to the hastily penned message, Arthur had been forced to take time off work under the shock wore off, and so he would be available to meet up anytime.

As soon as the third owl returned, Sirius sent it right back out again with a letter to the goblins.

Then, as he impatiently awaited the other responses, he went to visit Arthur Weasley.

-l-r-

"There's nothing to thank me for," Arthur insisted. "All I did was find the body in my yard; anyone could have done that. It's not like I did anything special."

Sirius rested his elbows on the table as he leaned forward. Despite understanding why the older man was reluctant to accept his gratitude, he wanted – _needed,_ even – to acknowledge what the other wizard's involvement had meant for him. "That doesn't make me any less grateful that you did find him. I would've been in Azk – in that place for the rest of my life if you hadn't."

"If it makes you feel better to thank me, then go ahead, but you really don't need to."

An impish smirk crossed Sirius' face. Even though his facial hair was messy and unkempt, and he had lost so much body weight and strength that he was had the troubling suspicion that a strong gust of wind would topple him over, he – for the first time since he left Azkaban – felt and looked like the mischievous and energetic young man he'd once been. "Since I have your permission, there is something that I want to do. You know I've always detested the Black estate and everything that comes with it. The idea of family seats, at least in regards to wizarding Britain, is oppressive and archaic. But now it's all in my possession, and I just – I'm not ready for that. I don't want it." Sirius was proud of the fact that, even after all of those years, he was still able to feign a quivering voice.

"It is a big change," Arthur agreed, stepping just a little further into Sirius' snare.

"Yeah," Sirius replied. "So I wrote to Gringotts this morning to arrange a monetary reward for what you did."

"Sirius, you don't need – I mean, I'd rather you didn't – "

"Think of it this way," Sirius said, cutting in smoothly with all the suaveness of the family he so loved to decry, "it's really you helping me out. My parents would have loathed the idea of any of the Black estate going to someone they deemed a blood traitor. The Malfoys and others of their kind would, too. Really, you'd be helping me get back at them for all the crap they gave me over the years." Seeing that Arthur was still uncertain, he asked, "What would Molly say?"

"I don't like charity, Sirius. And neither does she."

"But this isn't charity. It's a thank you, and it's a childish rebellion led several years too late. If you accept, I'm going to approach the Ministry and offer to fund a reward for the service of all involved. It will be going through official channels to everyone who was involved in uncovering the truth. It's not charity, and it's not just you. Look, you don't have to make a decision right now, but – "

"Alright," Arthur said reluctantly, letting himself be caught in the trap as he forfeited what he knew would be an unwinnable battle. Blacks tended to have the stubbornness of bulls, and this one, with his Gryffindor past and deeply ingrained me-against-the-world ways, was even more renowned for it than most. Arthur could fight it as long as he wanted, but he would, eventually, have to resign himself to defeat; he might as well accept it now and be done with it. "As long as it's not excessive."

"Of course not," Sirius said, although Arthur was aware that they had vastly different ideas of what constituted excessiveness. In his defence, however, Sirius restrained himself, quickly quelling his triumphant grin and instead launching into a story of a prank he and James had pulled on Orion and Walburga Black at one of the pureblood functions their parents had dragged them along to. He was halfway through the retelling when the pain and loss hit him afresh, but Arthur's knowing eyes and amused laugh helped him push through it. As he finished his tale, he heard matching chortles coming from the base of the stairs.

"So," Sirius said, looking at the identical freckled faces that had snuck into hearing distance during his story, "which of you is Fred and which of you is George? And, more importantly, would you like to come in for the next story?"

-l-r-

The second owl had returned around the time he, while regaling the twins with stories about his days at Hogwarts, realised he was swiftly becoming their newest role model. It had sombrely congratulated him for his freedom and had bid him be at the entrance to Hogwarts an hour hence so that he could be let in and escorted to the Headmaster's office. The twins had been disappointed at the prospect of cutting their story time short, but Sirius had promised that he would return another day to continue his tales. Now, however, as he stared at the Headmaster in shock and horror, Sirius was wishing he had remained in the hectic but, ultimately, simple and happy world of the Burrow. "You left Harry _where_?"

Albus Dumbledore peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, carefully examining the furious young man standing before him. Prison had drastically changed Sirius Black's appearance – where he had once looked impeccable and untroubled, he now looked haggard and world-weary – but he had clearly retained his tendency for anger. Not for the first time, he pondered how traumatic it must be to be in the presence of Dementors for such a long period of time. The model was antiquated even when it _was_ correctly applied, and it just became horrific when it was imposed upon the wrongly accused. Alas, despite his empathy for the man, he knew he had to resist his self-righteous demands; there was much more going on than Sirius Black would ever know. "It is wonderful to see you again, too, Sirius. It appears I must apologise for doubting you for all these years. I am sincerely sorry for what you must have gone through. Would you care to take a seat?"

Sirius shook his head, and a long clump of shaggy black hair fell into his eyes. "Dumbledore – "

"Harry is in a safe place. Who led you to believe otherwise?"

"Nobody. I was talking to somebody, and they let it slip that Harry wasn't with any of the major wizarding families, and that no one had heard from him other than the occasional photo or brief on his health. That leaves – "

"That leaves a range of possibilities."

" – that leaves Muggles or Squibs. And, given that they said he was with relatives, that leaves – "

"Sirius, you need to calm down."

" – that leaves Lily's family. Her parents died from some Muggle disease, so they're out, and they wouldn't have known enough about magic to be ideal anyway – "

" _Sirius_."

" – so, correct me if I'm wrong – and, _please_ , let me be wrong – it seems that the only relative Harry has left is Lily's sister. Of course, that _can't_ be where he's gone, because Lily told me all about her and about how she hates anything even remotely connected to magic, including Lily herself, so that would be the worst place in the world to leave Harry."

"Are you quite done?" Dumbledore sighed, and Sirius was struck afresh by how much time had passed since his imprisonment. Despite the fact that the war had ended and they were ostensibly in a period of peace, the Headmaster looked wearier than he had ever seen him. Why, if the danger was gone, was he so troubled? "None of this is to go any further than the two of us. Yes, Harry is with his aunt and uncle. I considered placing him with a magical family, but the Dursleys were the safest option for him."

"How – "

"No; it is my turn to speak. I understand your anger, but it isn't productive at the moment. In any case, I am sure I will address most of your questions anyway. You need to understand, Sirius, that there weren't many options available. The tension didn't end with Voldemort's defeat. Most of the Death Eaters were focused on reintegrating themselves into the Ministry's good graces, but there were still some among their number who would have harmed Harry if they'd had the chance. Many of the Order – the Longbottoms, the McKinnons, you – had fallen, and Remus was involved in an undercover operation for me that meant that he too was unable to care for a baby. I briefly considered taking him in myself, but I had neither the time nor the experience to be a good father figure. And I couldn't just leave him with any wizarding family. People called him a hero for something he didn't even do; one can only imagine how that would have messed with his head had he grown up amongst it. Add to that the fact that Voldemort is most likely still alive – "

Deflating like a balloon that no longer had the strength to celebrate, Sirius took the chair that Dumbledore had originally offered him. "What happened that night?"

"I am not entirely certain. However, I believe that Voldemort was trying to use Harry's death to make a Horcrux, but that Lily Potter jumped in the way when he was casting the ritual spell." Noticing Sirius' suddenly pale face, Dumbledore added, "Ah. I thought you might have heard about it. How much do you know about the topic?"

"Not much. My father explained what it does, but not how it's done." In a show of false bravado, Sirius smiled sardonically. "Pre-Hogwarts education was rather interesting in the Black household, you see."

"Yes," the Headmaster mused. "Well, the ritual requires a caster, a target sacrifice, and a target vessel. The caster possesses and kills the sacrifice, before catching the bit of his or her soul that had been in them and directing that to the vessel. If Lily did indeed get in the way of the spell, it would have been confused as to which roles the people present were supposed to take. It would have accepted Lily as the sacrifice; as that role was fulfilled, it wouldn't then need another."

Sirius swore. "You think he was possessing Harry when Lily died?" He might not know all that much about Horcruxes, but possession was a topic that had been extensively discussed in his household. It had all started when his mother, trying to disguise her seriousness under a veil of levity, had suggested that they try an exorcism on Sirius in case that was the reason he was behaving so contrarily to the traditions of the House of Black. His father had, fortunately, talked her down from that ledge, but it had spawned a series of discussions on what possession was and how it worked. The main thing he'd gained from that experience had been that it was _not_ a pleasant experience. Even just the idea of Voldemort inhabiting Harry's body, especially in front of Lily, nauseated him.

"I'm afraid so." Dumbledore waited, giving Sirius the chance to ask more questions, before continuing. "This is where it gets uncertain; I am not sure about the process that the spell then went through in determining what to do with the remaining people. My first theory is that it, after failing to find a soul piece that was no longer anchored to a body, settled for the only person in the room whose body only contained one person's soul. As such, it exorcised Voldemort's soul from his body. If one of his Death Eaters had been with him, they would have been able to shepherd him into another vessel, but, as it was, he was left to drift. This, of course, left Harry by himself – with his and a piece of Voldemort's consciousness inside of him.

"My second theory is that it did look to Harry next, but it saw himas the already completed vessel. While it is rare for living creatures to be used as the vessel, it is not impossible, and he had all the markers of a vessel; namely, he was present, he wasn't the sacrifice, and he had a bit of Voldemort in him. It then turned to Voldemort; it already had a sacrifice and a vessel, but it still needed to dislodge something before it could dissipate, so it dislodged the only other thing it could.

"Of course, the truth of the matter is that I don't know why it did what it did; Horcruxes are a topic that, fortunately, is neither widely nor deeply studied. What I do know is that the spell backfired on Voldemort and that Harry has been left, at least effectively, as the vessel – and that Lily's sacrifice also left some sort of blood protection over Harry that will persevere as long as he finds his home with a member of her biological family."

They both fell silent at the gravity of the situation. After a few minutes, however, Sirius' brain caught up with him, and he asked, "Wait. Why do you think Voldemort was making a Horcrux that night? Lily and James had spare time on their hands and a library at their disposal. They could have stumbled across some ancient protection ward."

"I sensed Dark magic when I dropped Harry off at the Dursleys, but I assumed it was just the magical footprint of the curse. It wasn't until I examined the scene that I recognised what it signified."

"So Harry's a Horcrux? What does that mean for him? Is there a way to remove it without hurting – ?"

"Not that I have found," Dumbledore interjected. "Trust me, Sirius; I have been looking for one."

"Horcruxes tether you to existence, but you need somebody to use it to revive you," Sirius said when he had recovered the ability to speak. "If Voldemort's followers are kept away from Harry, they won't be able to bring him back."

"Harry isn't Voldemort's only Horcrux, but, yes, if we destroyed the other Horcruxes, we could theoretically focus on protecting Harry until he dies of old age and so is no longer usable."

"There's no way Lily's sister can handle this," Sirius said. "Blood protection or not, Harry needs to live in our world. What if the Horcrux manifests in some way?"

"By the time I realised what we were dealing with, it was too late to properly examine Harry. My relationship with his aunt is unreliable; taking him away to check up on him would upset that balance. However, I have looked into that, and I don't believe it will be an issue. Voldemort's out there somewhere, but he is in no way _living_. He doesn't have the capacity to make use of the connection at this point in time. Harry is not a true Horcrux; the ritual did not bind him to the soul piece. I wouldn't be surprised if he is affected by it, but he won't be controlled or guided by it. When Harry arrives at Hogwarts, I will examine him to assess the extent of the effects."

"So the only reasons you left him with Lily's sister are that they could take him in and that it offers him some protection against Voldemort?"

"I hardly see either of those reasons as being mere trifles, Sirius."

"I am more than happy to take him in. And I can protect him. My father, for all his stupidity, did one thing right when he warded the estates so tightly that Voldemort himself couldn't break in. The Death Eaters have no chance of breaching them; Harry would be much safer with me than with his Muggle relatives. Besides, he needs to grow up in our world. He needs to be prepared to deal with the effects of this not-a-Horcrux. He's James' heir, and he'll be mine too; he has to know what that means. Harry's going to have a lot of responsibility and attention thrust upon him when he gets to Hogwarts; he needs to start preparing for that now. Even if his relatives are telling him what they know about magic, there's no way they'll be able to cover everything he'll need to know."

"I understand your concerns, but I still feel that – "

"At least let me see him," Sirius pleaded. "At least let me check that he's alright and, if he agrees, visit him regularly so he's not completely unprepared. If he wants to stay there, he can. If he doesn't, let me bring him back with me."

* * *

A/N: If You Dare Challenge – prompt: All You Did Was Save My Life


	4. The Fairy Godfather Waves His Wand

A/N: Sorry for the wait; I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo (ugh, such a bad idea at the moment) and my laptop has been having some battery problems lately, so most of my attention has either been on new writing, managing the laptop issue, or trying to rejuvenate before uni resumes next week. _So_ not ready for the next semester.

Also, I forgot to say what the Buffy reference was. I'm going to go back and add it to the A/N at the end of that chapter, but the bit about dancing demons and killer bunnies (because that's just how BtVS rolls) was an allusion to the episode Once More, With Feeling.

To the first guest reviewer: Thank you! True, although I think the general public would only know the broad area, in which case Sirius probably still did some snooping around first. Yeah, Arthur and Molly are probably in for an influx of pranks… And I can't remember if that was on purpose (with Sirius either not taking Hagrid's words in properly or just having doubts because Remus' wellbeing was alluded to but not explicitly stated) or not, but thanks for pointing it out.

To Sara: I'm a bit more sympathetic towards Dumbledore because of how stretched thin he must have been to monitor everything he was supposed to take care of, but I definitely agree that he's always got a hidden agenda and that it's better for Harry to live with Sirius – or, really, almost any Order member – than with the Dursleys. And thank you again :).

To the second guest reviewer: Thank you so much! I hope you continue to enjoy it.

* * *

 _Well,_ Harry thought as he pushed his aching legs to run past what he would have assumed to be his breaking point, _at least this is a group sport, I guess, even if it isn't a very fun one for me._

He rounded a corner and, no longer visible to his pursuers, slid through a small hole in Mrs Searl's fence before sinking to the ground. A thick row of dense bushes stretched out in front of him, concealing him from the bulk of her backyard. He had found himself using this hiding place more and more regularly of late; she remained indoors most of the time due to a broken leg, so he could easily slip in and out unnoticed. Her relative absence was like a godsend for him; it was a good hiding place but, at the end of the day, even Dudley's gang was better than having his aunt and uncle find out he'd been caught sneaking into a neighbour's yard.

The sound of Dudley and his friends gleefully yapping away about what they were planning on doing to him reached his ears. Harry's instincts screamed for him to make a run for it, but he knew that that would be the wrong move. It would only put him back into their line of fire and, although he was faster than them, the chance of outrunning them wasn't worth the risk of giving away his location. As it was, they would probably assume, as they always did, that Harry had slipped off into one of the many side streets to hide. Given that the road was long and flat and all of the streets coming off it ended in cul-de-sacs, they wouldn't think to check unconventional hiding spots anytime soon, thus giving him a chance to slip away.

As he fought to calm his breathing, Harry idly wondered what debagging was. He hoped he'd never have to find out.

 _At least,_ he thought grimly, _none of them are particularly bright_. After all, they had yet to work out how Harry constantly managed to disappear when they reached this street, or that blustering about as they always did just gave Harry an indication of where they were in relation to him. There was a shout of shock and, closing his eyes, he imagined the stupid looks on their faces as they turned the corner. Even though past experience suggested that Harry wouldn't be there when they turned the corner, they always seemed to assume that their eyes would easily catch sight of his skinny figure as it retreated into the distance.

"Where'd he go?" someone asked.

"Dunno," Dudley replied.

"Should we split up?" a third voice asked. Harry suspected it belonged to Jim, who was the only one of them to ever show any level of thought above, 'There's Harry; he looks happy; let's punch him.' Jim was probably the one who had suggested this new, unknown punishment in the first place, although Harry supposed that one of the others could have seen someone else do this debagging thing and decided that it looked like the makings of a perfect afternoon. "They always do that in movies. He had to go into a side street, so maybe if two of us search them while the others make sure he doesn't slip out of anywhere else…"

 _Don't do that,_ Harry thought. While he could technically outwait them, it would be a dangerous game to play as it would mean running the risk of getting home after Dudley and having his aunt punish him for being late.

"I don't want to stay," a voice that Harry thought belonged to Piers stated. "You stay; it was your idea."

"As long as Will stays too," probably-Jim bargained. "He's the only one with a chance of catching the blighter over a long distance."

Harry shuffled further away from the hole before leaning back against the cool wooden fence. It looked like he was going to be there for a while, so he might as well get comfortable while the gang was still distracted with what, for them, passed as strategising. The boys would hopefully quickly tire of walking down streets and end up hurrying through them, leaving his path home clear. Staring up at the patch of clear blue sky bracketed by green leaves and brown wood, he envisioned himself flying away from it all. He wondered what it would be like to be a bird, feeling the air swirl around you as you travelled from place to place, only staying as long as it suited you. Did bird suffer bullies, too? Did their harassers fly along behind them, chirping their insults, or did they fall behind as a wind current swept them apart?

He heard the sound of feet trudging away, and the remaining two boys immediately settled into an avid conversation about the latest football scores. They both played and practiced regularly, and Harry had previously overheard Will express the desire to go pro with it. The kid was burly for his age, quite fast, and, according to the gang, the best player in their local competition, so his friends all seemed to think he had a decent chance of success. Wistfulness flooded through Harry as they gossiped and debated with such keen enthusiasm that he could almost feel it from his spot behind the fence.

He had always wanted to join a team. Who was in it and what it was for didn't matter to him, so long as his teammates were nice and didn't yell at him for other people's mistakes. After his first week of primary school, wherein he'd heard all of his classmates wax on about the different teams and clubs they were a part of, he had gone home and asked his aunt and uncle if he could join a team too. They, however, had been firmly against the idea of letting their peculiar nephew interact with the neighbourhood children any more than he had to, and had banned him from ever suggesting it again. Talking about teams had, along with asking questions and using his imagination, gone into the drawer of things he wasn't allowed to do in front of the Dursleys. Still, hearing Dudley's friends' conversations about different sports always stoked Harry's desire to be part of a team too.

Although he couldn't picture life being anything other than the painful thing it had always been, he sometimes wished a wind current would swoosh him away from his empty life and deposit him in a fantasy land where his parents were still alive and with him. Of course, those thoughts were quickly tamped down and never expressed, for his aunt frequently impressed upon Harry and Dudley the wickedness of imagination.

So Disney movies and Dr Seuss books were, quite obviously, as far out of the picture as anything could get.

Closing his eyes as he redirected his thoughts from birds to bullies, he idly listened to their conversation once again. The discussion was rather shallow and trite, only skimming the surface of the game, but at least they had stopped talking about the horrible things they wanted to do to him.

They were halfway through a recap of the last minute game-winning goal when Harry felt something brush up against his leg. Stiffening, he opened his eyes and forced himself to look down at it. A large, hairy black spider was skulking along the ground next to him, its spindly legs brushing his leg as it went.

Harry wasn't sure what species of spider it was, only that it looked to be the kind that could very effectively defend itself. His instincts screamed at him to kick it away or to run back through the hole – Dudley's gang, however vicious, had never actually tried anything life-threatening – but he forced himself to remain still. It didn't seem to be aware that he was anything other than a fallen tree branch, and he'd quite like it to remain that way.

His nose started to tingle. He tried scrunching it up, he tried holding his nostrils together, but nothing helped. The discomfort grew and grew as the mucus yearned to escape its confines, not content with its containment.

Unable to take it anymore, Harry sneezed.

His body jerked in reaction, causing his leg to jostle against the spider. It reeled back in shock, before eyeing him as if seeing him afresh. When it reared up on its hide legs, its fangs ready to strike, Harry realised that this revaluation had not categorised him in the 'inanimate background object' category. Screaming, he scrambled away from it, trying to reach the little hole so that he could crawl back through to safety. His cover was blown anyway; he might as well resign himself to it. He heard Mrs Searl shout out a question, and Will and Jim cry out in joy at what they probably assumed meant Harry had been caught by his cousin and Piers.

Despite the nature of his cohabitants in his meagre living quarters, he had never actually experienced a spider bite before. Still, it didn't feel like he expected it to. Instead of feeling a sharp pain and then a sense of queasiness, he felt like he was being squished in upon himself. Perhaps it was one of those spiders that had such small fangs that humans didn't even notice when they were bitten, and he was experiencing the dizzying effects of the venom rather than the sting of the bite itself.

When he opened his eyes, however, it was to see Privet Drive stretching out before him like a red carpet laid out to welcome him home to warmth and, more importantly, safety. Neither were things that he usually associated with the place, but, that day, it felt like a haven in comparison to the small space between the bushes and the fence in Mrs Searl's yard.

 _I'm going mad,_ he thought wryly. _There's no way I can be here right now. Maybe the venom makes you see things that aren't there, like that Batman villain John keeps talking about._

Real or not, he decided to run with it. There was nothing he could do about it if it were one of the wicked imaginings that his aunt had warned him about or, worse still, one of the crazy obstacles his classmate liked to ramble on about; all he could do was hold on and hope somebody with an antidote found him. If, however, it were all real, he might as well go home and wash himself up before making tea.

Bumbling his way to his feet, he stretched his cramped limbs and started his way towards the house.

-l-r-

Clean, no longer hungry, and still in the version of reality where he could teleport from one place to another, Harry lay on his rickety little bed under the stairs and tried to ignore his newfound awareness of the cobwebs that hung from his walls like party banners. He didn't want to get rid of the only friends he had ever had, but he was afraid that he'd disregard a black dot under the assumption it was a daddy long legs only to find out it was a dangerous specimen when its fangs sunk into his unsuspecting leg at night.

Fiddling with the tennis ball he'd once found abandoned in the park helped. He tossed the white-striped yellow ball into the air before catching it again, watching it soar higher and higher each time while ensuring it never quite got high enough to hit the ceiling or cause any other kind of noise. The need for secrecy gave him a good incentive to catch it every time; it wouldn't do for any of his relatives to hear the ball slam against the wall or floor and grow suspicious about what he had in there.

This was the closest he got to ever really playing sport; he had to participate at school, but his classmates, aware of how Dudley felt about anyone who showed Harry any kindness, never truly involved him unless it was to humiliate him. It was highly possible that he'd be the only student in his year to fail PE, and all because his classmates went out of their way to exclude him from their plays.

A knock rang out against the front door. Distracted, Harry missed the catch, and the ball hit him on his forehead before he could, after fumbling like a little kid, secure it within his hands once again. The sound of his uncle grumbling his way from the kitchen to the front door, complaining all the while about doorbells and people dropping in unannounced, made him stuff it down the crack between his bed and the wall out of fear that Uncle Vernon would decide to pop his head in to order the boy to finish something while he was greeting the unexpected visitor. Diving for his schoolbag, Harry pulled out his science book and pretended to be attentively doing his homework.

The front door creaked open, and his uncle asked gruffly, "Who are you?"

"Are you Vernon Dursley of 4 Privet Drive?" The respondent was female, and her voice sounded calm and collected in comparison to his uncle's brusque question.

"Who's asking?"

"Please answer my question, sir."

"This is my house – "

"Yes, he's Vernon," Petunia's shaky voice cut in. Harry was surprised at her tone; she was usually as defensive of her territory as her husband, but it sounded like something had shaken her. "I'm his wife, Petunia. What do you want?"

"We're here to discuss Harry. Is he here? May we come in?"

"Are you from the school?" Vernon asked. "Is he failing again?"

"Again?" Another unrecognisable voice asked. It was male this time, and it sounded a lot less polite than his companion's.

"I think we should discuss this inside," Petunia said.

Voices were replaced with footsteps as they presumably made to do exactly that. Curiosity was starting to overwhelm Harry. _Why would they be here about me?_ The only thing that stopped him from going out to check was that Aunt Petunia's lectures on the wickedness of imagination were nothing compared to her condemnation of curiosity. Questions were, or so she often said, disrespectful and inappropriate, and snooping around was even worse.

"My name is Amelia Bones, and this is Sirius Black. I believe Albus Dumbledore left Harry Potter in your care several years ago."

"Left him in our care, did he?" Vernon roared. "More like dumped him on our doorstep."

"What do you mean by that, sir?"

Struggling to make out the woman's words, Harry inched open the door to his cupboard. The hallway was empty and the kitchen door was wide open, so he climbed up the stairs and sat on a step just out of sight of the room. If anyone came out, he'd clamber further upstairs and pretend he'd just needed to use the loo. With his cover story thus prepared, he poked his head down so that he could see through the railings into the kitchen. His aunt and uncle were facing away from him, while the two strangers faced the door. That was a relief; he didn't want anybody to spot him, but, if somebody had to, he would rather it be one of the two strangers. They seemed much nicer than the Dursleys, and he knew from experience that strangers were much less likely to scold him than his family was.

"Exactly bloody that. He left him on the doorstep with a note and a blanket and just expected us to care for him, never mind that we had a baby of our own and plans for another – "

"Do you still have this note?"

"We threw it away," Petunia said. "Didn't want _him_ finding it and filling his head with nonsense like that."

"Be quiet, Sirius," Amelia Bones muttered, before saying at her normal volume, "Well, you don't need to worry about it anymore. Sirius was originally listed as Harry's next-of-kin in the event that something happened to his parents. He has been incapacitated for the past few years, but is now available to assume that responsibility. It would appear," here she paused, and Harry got the strange sense that, despite her even tone, she was admonishing them, "as if you would have no issue with that."

"It's just like your sort to saddle us with raising a kid and then just expect us to give him back when you change your mind. Sure; take him. It's not like he fits in around here, anyway. We're a nice, normal town, thank you very much, and your kind isn't exactly conventional, are you? We tried to stamp it out of him, to raise him right and proper, but nothing worked. Just don't expect us to take him back again if this, er, Sirius gets _incapacitated_ again, alright?"

"Trust me, he won't ever be coming back here," Sirius said, and he met Vernon Dursley's eyes with a steely gaze of barely concealed fury that would have intimidated and cowered much braver, much stronger, men. The businessman flinched under the weight of his stare, and, in response, the corner of the Animagus' mouth flicked up in vindictive amusement. Harry wondered at the man's intensity. Why did he care so much? And would it really be better to go away with him? For all that his aunt and uncle had humiliated and hurt him, they had never actually lifted a hand to either of the children. But, in that moment, this man looked more terrifying than Harry ever remembered his uncle being.

"Wait," Petunia interrupted. "Albus Dumbledore was the one to contact us last time. Is he aware of this? You're more than welcome to take Harry with you, but only if he – "

"What does it matter if that loony bat agrees to it or not? He said there was no one else to take the boy, and now there's someone else who can take the boy. It doesn't matter what we do with him, as long as he has somewhere to stay."

"You know there's more to it than that," she replied quietly, so quietly that Harry had to strain himself to hear her, and Harry wished he knew the context behind the conversation. "It's not just about giving the boy a roof over his head; it's about keeping him safe from _them_."

"I arranged it with him," the man cut in, his voice hard. "Here; he gave us a letter for you."

Harry's aunt moved forward, blocking the doorway and thus his vision. He assumed she had taken the letter, however, as Harry then heard her muttering something to herself. "Well," she eventually said, "this seems to be in order. He certainly knows about what we've previously discussed, in any case."

"So," the female stranger said, "does this mean we can see him now?"

"You're definitely taking him, then?" Vernon asked. "No matter what he's like?"

As his aunt returned to her place at the kitchen table, Harry shuffled, uncomfortably, in place. He knew he had never been good enough for them, but he didn't know why his uncle felt like he had to tell every stranger who had even the slimmest chance of meeting him about how disappointing he was in comparison to their own son. It was like he always had to either be hidden away and ignored, which involved being instructed in how to act as quietly and properly as possible before making a quick getaway, or insulted and downtrodden. He was never allowed to just be himself. He knew that there were a lot of things about him that weren't right, such as his scrawniness and his hair and his strange propensity for causing weird things to happen and being curious. But there were a lot of things that were wrong about his aunt and uncle and cousin, too; they were judgemental and hypocritical and uncaring when it came to anyone outside of their ilk. The way they treated him, like he was yesterday's garbage, never ceased to baffle him. Why couldn't they love him despite his flaws, just like they adored Dudley despite his?

Anticipation gripped him as he awaited the strange man's answer. Part of him wanted this pair, with her talk of his parents and his unnerving glares, to just leave him be. Living the Dursleys had never been pleasant, and, most likely, never would be, but it was what Harry was used to; the idea of going off to live with this stranger was daunting and, frankly, quite frightening.

On the other hand, however, it was what he had always wanted. When he had first watched _Cinderella_ at school, he had pictured himself as the downtrodden heroine who, after one little meeting with her long-forgotten fairy godmother, was swept away into an exciting new world where she was respected and admired and celebrated. Harry had never told anyone about it for fear of what they would say, but he had dreamed of being similarly removed from his situation. Not to a palace where he would meet somebody who valued him and get married and rule the kingdom. No; his aspirations were nowhere near that high. He didn't care about fortune or power; he merely wanted to be somewhere where he would be loved. When he heard his classmates talk about their families or friends, he couldn't help but wonder why the things that they took so for granted – love and acceptance and safety – were always denied to him. However frightening this man could be, he represented a chance at a new life, at a better life.

If there were any chance, however small, that this man would take him someplace where he would be loved and welcomed, he would take whatever risk it came with.

"He's my best friend's son," the man said. "As long as he wants to come with me, there's nothing that you could do or he could be that would stop me."

Harry stilled, as if it were all an illusion that movement would break as easily as if it were a twig. He felt winded; it was like that time Dudley and his friends had caught him in order to try out a boxing technique they'd heard of where a swift hit to a particular place in your stomach region would knock all your breath right out of you. They hadn't known exactly where this handy little spot was, but they'd made do with hitting him until they happened across it.

The man – Sirius – seemed to be offering love and respect and family and _everything Harry had ever wanted._

Surely he couldn't be the right Harry. The man had to be looking for someone else, for another boy whose name was Harry and whose parents had died. He would come to meet Harry and he would see what he looked like and he would realise instantly that it was the wrong boy, that he had been given the wrong address or that the Harry he was looking for and the Harry the Dursleys had raised had been swapped at birth or something. It would certainly explain why Harry was never able to live up to their expectations of him. Realising the error, the man would hesitate, before tonelessly asking Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia if he could talk with them in the kitchen. He'd leave, disappointed and maddened, and the woman would go with him, and they'd both leave Harry behind.

What happened when the fairy godmother came and then realised that she couldn't, or wouldn't, help after all? What happened to the child left behind?

Still, some small part of him couldn't help but thrill at the words with a show of rebellious hopefulness. What if he _was_ the right Harry? What if this man _was_ his real life fairy godmother?


	5. And the Glass Slipper Fits

A/N: My country has a new Prime Minister. I'm cautiously excited, but it's troubling to think about how bad we are at retaining them. Four PMs in five years, and we _literally_ lost one once.

Anyway, I'm sorry for how long it's been. Some major life things happened, so I've had neither the time nor the energy to work on this. Uni break starts next week, though, so I'm hoping to finish the final two chapters soon.

Thank you again to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. It was lovely to read your thoughts, and it really did help motivate me to get going again.

To the first guest reviewer: Thank you! I didn't even consider Amelia's perspective. And yeah, haha. Although it might be good that they never met; if they had, Sirius might have landed himself in more legal trouble.

To Sara: Even harmless ones can be super off-putting. The only spiders I'm comfortable around are daddy long legs, lol. We do get some pretty venomous ones around here, though. And I'm not going to go into much detail about the time after Harry moves in with Sirius, but the changes in Harry should be evident in the epilogue.

To the second guest reviewer: Haha! He totally would. I blame the chapter titles on playing Halo and discovering Fall Out Boy… Also, thanks, I was hoping that people would pick up on that.

* * *

The man's slate grey eyes looked up from the table and locked onto Harry. Terrified at the idea of being caught eavesdropping, the boy made to pull away, but something in the man's steady gaze held him in place. Harry had never before seen eyes look that sorrowful, yet they also held traces of recognition and, as time wore on, of amusement. How someone could be entertained by the prospect of being spied on was beyond Harry, but the evidence seemed undeniable. This man _appreciated_ it.

"Besides," Sirius Black said, continuing to hold Harry's gaze in a way that made the boy feel as if he were being let in on some private joke, "I rather think I'll like the kid."

"Well, if you're sure, then you might as well meet him. I'll go fetch him."

"I'm sure I can find him on my own. It might be better for him if I met him in his room, anyway; in somewhere that's just his."

"I insist," Uncle Vernon pressed, his voice starting to sound strained. "You wait here."

"He likes playing in the strangest places," his aunt chimed in, "so it might be hard for you to find him. Vernon knows where to look. Besides, it'd be better for it to come from him."

The sound of a chair scraping across the floor rang out through the kitchen, and Harry finally broke eye contact with the mysterious newcomer. Jumping up like a jack-in-the-box, he scampered up the stairs, racing for the nearest toilet. He managed to shut the door just before his uncle bellowed up the stairs for him to come down from his bedroom. "I'm in the loo, Uncle Vernon!" he called back, unzipping his pants and going to the toilet for the sake of believability. "I'll just be a minute!"

Footsteps thundered up the stairs. Harry was sure his uncle was trying to be quiet, but his weight and the pressure of the strangers' presence worked against him. Knowing that the older man wouldn't have much patience, he hurriedly finished his business. By the time he had flushed the toilet, the slapping of feet against floorboards had ceased, and all that Harry could hear was the sound of his uncle's harsh panting.

"Be quick about it, then! There's somebody here to see you."

"Alright," Harry said as he re-zipped his pants and washed his hands. "I'm almost done."

He was, perhaps rather foolishly, hoping that Uncle Vernon would head back down without waiting for him, but the man was still in the hallway when Harry emerged from the bathroom. The expression on his uncle's face was as imposing as the boy had ever seen it, and Harry almost cowered back under its weight.

"Look, boy," his uncle said gruffly, "there's a man here to see you. He was friends with your parents and says he wants you to move in with him. Says that you were supposed to go with him to begin with, but he was… _busy_ …. at the time. You're to be on your best behaviour. If you do _anything_ to make him change his mind… Well, let's just say you don't want to see the consequences of turning him away."

"I will. I mean, I won't. I mean – I'll be good."

"You'd better be. Now, _get_ ; you'd better not keep him waiting. He's a freak like you. If you behave, he'll take you in; if you don't, he'll be much less tolerant than we are, that's for sure."

Harry seriously doubted that, given that 'tolerant' wasn't exactly a word he would have used to describe his aunt and uncle. Still, he nodded obediently before racing back down the stairs, only slowing down when he reached the open door. He paused for a moment to collect himself, and to give his uncle – whose footsteps were following him like an ominous drumroll – time to catch up, and then nervously entered the kitchen.

"Hello?" Harry asked as he rounded the corner. His uncle's hand rested on his shoulder, an ominous reminder hidden in a fake show of affection. The cautioning was unnecessary, however; this was his one shot at leaving the Dursleys, and he was determined not to mess it up.

Sirius Black immediately stood up and made his way across the kitchen, dropping to his knees before Harry in a move that startled the young boy with its sociability. The man's arm twitched upwards, almost as if he wanted to reach out to the eight-year-old, but he appeared to mentally restrain himself. "Harry," he said, his voice breaking halfway through the word. "Harry, it is so good to see you again."

"I – I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are."

"Of course you don't. Don't know why you'd need to apologise for that." Sirius Black paused, and Harry had to resist the urge to apologise for making what had obviously been a mistake. Fortunately, the man pressed on before he had the chance to make a fool of himself. "My name is Sirius. I was close friends with both of your parents, and they named me your godfather when you were born." He paused before continuing almost mechanically, as if he had practiced his words over and over in his head in preparation for that moment, adding, "I was meant to take you in if anything ever happened to them, but I was falsely accused of a crime and was sent to prison for a number of years. The real culprit was caught a few days ago, which left me free to check in on you.

"Now, you have a decision to make, Harry. I would love for you to live with me, but I understand that you've lived here for a long time and might not feel comfortable leaving here – or leaving here yet. If you'd rather, I could just come and visit you here whenever you want me to."

"You knew my parents? Could you tell me about them?" It almost seemed too good to be true; if this man was a friend of his parents, he had to be better than the Dursleys. Questions were usually banned in the Dursley household, but Harry couldn't rein it in. From what he had heard and seen, Sirius didn't seem to be the type to get angry because he'd been asked a question. And, if he was, then Harry might as well find that out then rather than later on.

Pain flashed across Sirius' face, but the man kept his voice steady as he replied, "Anything and everything you want to know."

Fairy-tale endings never came to people who refused to take risks. Staring up into his godfather's eyes, Harry said sincerely, "Then I would very much like to live with you."

If Harry hadn't been watching him so closely, he might have missed it. As it was, though, he was almost certain that he saw a shimmer pass over the man's eyes. "You look a lot like them, you know; you – your hair, your face – look almost exactly like your father, but your eyes… Your eyes are all your mother," he said, before reaching out and pulling Harry into a warm embrace. It was a strange feeling; he'd been hugged before, of course, but it had never before felt truly caring. Yet this man, who he had known for a matter of minutes, had come in like the tide to sweep him up in its warmth. "I'm sorry I couldn't be here for you earlier, but things are different now. I'm never going to leave you, kid. Never."

-l-r-

Sirius wasn't happy when he saw how little Harry had to bring with him, but, other than a brief and quiet clarification, he refrained from commenting on it. Vernon Dursley didn't seem the type to freely apologise, and he didn't want to do anything that might jeopardise his newfound guardianship of Harry. Later, perhaps, he would return and pull a prank worthy of his old Marauder days; it would be the kind of stunt that would leave the Dursleys in no doubt as to who had done it, yet with no way of proving it without bringing further embarrassment and claims of _untowardness_ upon themselves. In that moment, however, he was more concerned with helping his godson settle in.

The day prior, while Dumbledore had organised the adoption with the Ministry, Sirius and his grandfather had made their way through the Black properties to decide which one would be the most suitable and direct the house-elves to prepare it for their arrival. Having to cooperate with Arcturus Black had been a far from pleasant experience, but it had been a necessary one, and Sirius had taken comfort in the fact that it hadn't been nearly as belittling as it would have been had his late parents still been around to rub the occasion in his face. His grandfather, at least, had been willing to temporarily put aside past differences so as to make the transition as easy as possible for the boy.

Both wizards had immediately dismissed Grimmauld Place; it was, by far, the most secure, but returning there for any extended period of time would drive him mad, and the other properties were no unguarded shacks either. They had seriously considered the manor in Bath; it was centrally located, it would prepare Harry for the kinds of things he would have to face upon entering Hogwarts, and, as Sirius had never actually lived there, it didn't have nearly as many bad memories attached to it. However, the idea of living with his grandfather, however moderate he might be in comparison to the rest of the Black family, had been off-putting; this was Sirius' chance to finally live free of shackles, whether they be familial or judicial, and he wasn't going to squander it by sharing the manor and his responsibility for Harry with his grandfather.

So, ultimately, they had decided on their French retreat. His great-great-grandfather, Phineas Nigellus Black, had bought it as a present for his sister after her betrothed died, and she had named it Ophelia's Retreat in honour of a play she'd read where the main female character drowned after her lover betrayed her. Despite, or perhaps because, of its melancholic name, it had always held a certain allure for Sirius. The idea of leaving Britain entirely, at least for a few years, was undeniably appealing. Besides, the other Marauders had come along with him to the retreat a few times, and the Dursleys didn't appear to be the sort to go on overseas holidays, so he couldn't wait to see Harry's reaction to the beautiful beaches, fortress and wildlife or to take him to the mainland to explore the culture, countryside and food. It would, he imagined, be as close to introducing his godson to their once-idyllic world as he could get.

He had decided, however, not to take Harry directly there. Floo and Side Along Apparation could be brutal if you hadn't experienced them before, and he didn't want to risk souring their first day together by putting Harry through either of those things. So, instead, a Ministry official drove them back to the Ministry to drop off Amelia before taking them to Bath so they could spend the night at the manor.

After casting a nonverbal privacy charm so the driver couldn't eavesdrop, Sirius spent the car trip trying to entice Harry to tell him about his life and interests. While he couldn't quite reconcile himself with the idea of James' son ending up shy or socially reserved, it was a distinct possibility that the strange vibes he was picking up on was just the result of nerves. Everything he heard, however, only served to alarm him further. His godson never said anything bad about his family or friends, but what he _didn't_ say conveyed a great deal.

When asked about his friends, he mentioned a few boys that he used to speak to every now and again, but it all seemed to have been in the past, and he didn't seem particularly invested in keeping in contact with any of them. When asked about school, he said it was alright, but he couldn't name anything specific that he liked about it. When asked about his interests, he listed running and tossing around an old tennis ball, but, despite the Dursleys' obvious affluence, he said he'd never been enrolled in a sports program. When asked about his family, he said that they were normal and had done him a favour in taking him in, but his answer was completely devoid of any sort of real emotional connection.

All in all, Harry gave the kind of answers Sirius would have expected from someone who had recently moved into a neighbourhood and was still trying to adjust to it, not from a young boy who had lived there since he was a baby. Nothing he said indicated any kind of real attachment to his school, home, or even family. It explained why both the Dursleys and Harry had been so nonchalant about the idea of the boy moving away, but the aura of indifference disturbed him. Sirius' parents, as horrid as they had been, were furious when they'd learned that he'd run away to the Potters, and they had known the family long enough to know that the sixteen-year-old would be _safe_ with them. How could someone be so blasé about their eight-year-old nephew going off to live with someone they'd never really met?

But it was clear to Sirius that he wasn't going to get a straight answer from Harry about his experiences at Privet Drive, so he eventually gave up and started to talk about Bath and France instead. It was easy to get lost in the young boy's excitement about the prospect of moving overseas, but Sirius' enthusiasm was belied by the knowledge that he hadn't yet cracked through his godson's shell. It was only to be expected, really, but it still bothered him like a pesky mosquito that he couldn't quite catch.

Sirius needed time to reconsider his approach to Harry, and he knew that Harry needed time to adjust to the change. Perhaps the younger wizard would be more inclined to open up once he'd had a chance to get used to the idea. Trust wasn't something that just happened, after all, however much it hurt Sirius to think that his godson didn't yet trust him enough to confide in him.

It was for that reason that it was a relief when, two and a half hours later, they arrived at Black Manor and bid the driver farewell. The way Harry's eyes widened and mouth fell open at the sight of the manor amused and pleased him; he didn't yet know the specifics, but it was clear that Harry hadn't had a very good life so far, and he looked forward to rectifying that. One day, Harry's life would be as full of happiness and confidence as it would have been had he had the chance to grow up with Lily and James; if his little stint eavesdropping on Sirius' conversation with his aunt and uncle was anything to go by, at least, he had more than enough potential to eventually take up the mantle of the Marauders.

-l-r-

As the afternoon passed, however, the number of peculiar things that surrounded Harry just kept accumulating. Sirius had known that Harry wouldn't be used to magic; there was no way the Dursleys would have been able to familiarise him with that, especially if the point of having Harry live there was to keep him hidden until he turned eleven. But he was surprised at how obviously uncomfortable Harry was whenever anything did something even remotely magical. At first, the way the boy shot the self-activating lamps a double take before pointedly ignoring them until they reverted to normal had been sweet and endearing. Over time, however, the mystery of Harry's reactions had grown into another mosquito buzzing away at the back of Sirius' mind.

Noticing Harry's restlessness, Sirius resolved not to use magic until he had a chance to talk it through with him. Perhaps he just needed to see it in an obviously artificial environment before he could get used to seeing it being used to do things that he was so used to seeing people do the Muggle way. _After dinner,_ he thought to himself, relieved that he had asked the house-elves to steer well clear of Harry for the evening so as not to suddenly bombard him with the eccentricities of magic.

"Would it be alright if I went to bed?" Harry eventually asked, after their dinner plates had magically washed themselves but before Sirius got the chance to direct the conversation towards magic. "I'm getting a bit tired."

Despite his disappointment, Sirius merely said, "Alright." Harry had opened up more during dinner, sharing a few memories about his relationship with his cousin, so Sirius had hoped they could keep getting to know one another over a cup of hot chocolate, but he could see the benefits of retiring early for the night. Harry was probably used to an early bedtime, after all, and Sirius' sleeping pattern was still messed up after all the time he'd spent in Azkaban. "I'll walk you there so you don't get lost. It can be a difficult place to wrap your head around."

"It is quite large," Harry tried to say, but his words were almost drowned out by a long yawn. "Thanks. I'll try to remember it for next time."

"No rush. I still get lost sometimes, and I was literally born here, so I certainly don't expect you to learn your way around immediately. Remember, Harry, that you can come to me about anything." Sirius led his godson out of the dining room, taking his time and, once again, pointing out the different rooms and quirky decorations along their way. He was happy to show Harry the way as often as he needed, but it would be good for him to be able to make his way around without having to wait for or find Sirius, and the self-sufficiency that would come from knowing his way around could only do him good.

"Sirius," Harry eventually said, quietly interrupting the older wizard's tale about a strangely-shaped statue that looked like something out of Roman mythology, "I've been seeing things."

Although his instincts urged him to make a joke, Sirius reined himself in; Harry was obviously unsettled by the issue, and an ill-timed jest might put him off future self-disclosure. "What kind of things?"

"Just… _things._ Weird things. Chairs moving by themselves, plates washing themselves, things turning off and on by themselves…" Quietly, Harry added, "It was almost like magic."

Stunned, Sirius stopped in his tracks, feeling as if he'd been hit with a bludger. The eight-year-old walked several more paces before realising that he was alone and turning back to shoot an inquisitive look at his godfather.

Seeing the look on the older man's face, Harry's expression fell, and he hurriedly said, "I know magic's not real; I'm not mad. It's just a figure of speech. I'm probably just seeing things because of how tired I am."

"What do you mean, 'magic's not real'?"

"Er – "

Sirius took a fortifying breath before tentatively asking, "What did your aunt and uncle tell you about your parents?"

"They didn't like talking about them," Harry said, but he must have seen something in Sirius' steely expression, for he continued, "They didn't work. They died in a car crash on Halloween. We'd gone out and were speeding home when… _it_ happened. It's why my aunt hates Halloween so much; she says it makes people do stupid things."

Rage rushed through Sirius like waves beating against the rocks. It was obvious that the Dursleys weren't paragons of parenthood, but had they honestly been lying to Harry about this for all this time? How could they leave him so ill-prepared to understand the accidental magic that had surely already started to make an appearance in his life? How could they demean Lily and James Potter, and the cause they had fought and died for, with such a show of callousness? How could they be so hypocritical as to insult the Potters' parenting when they themselves were so blind, or so uncaring, towards Harry's wellbeing?

Fury and sorrow warred within him like enemy nations straining for dominance. Regardless of who the victor was, of whether Sirius ended up exploding in a burst of ire or collapsing into a heap of tears, it wouldn't be good for Harry to witness the aftermath. Even as a teenager, Sirius had known that he never wanted to become a father, terrified of what it would do to a child to subject them to the horrors of the Black family. His experiences in Azkaban had only served to further corrupt an already twisted mind. If he were to truly take care of Harry, and he was determined to do so, then he had to keep that side of himself as secret as a Squib on a pureblood family tree.

 _I can't deal with this right now,_ Sirius realised. The upcoming conversation would require patience and clear-headedness on his part, and open-mindedness and alertness on Harry's, which were things that neither of them would be able to bring that to the table that night.

"Right," Sirius said, struggling to keep his emotions from seeping into his tone. "Well, I know I sometimes get a bit delirious when I'm exhausted, so it's nothing to be worried about. Why don't we talk about your parents tomorrow morning after breakfast? I know more about them than anyone, so I might be able to fill in some things for you. I promised to answer all of your questions, but I'm afraid I haven't done a very good job of it so far."

"I thought you had things to do tomorrow."

"They can keep for a few days." Stopping in front of an impressionist painting of a unicorn, Sirius gestured to a nearby door. "Here we are. This is your room, and I'll be right across the hallway. I'm a light sleeper, so please feel free to knock if you need anything. I'd much rather you wake me up instead of risking getting lost somewhere in the manor."

"Thanks, Sirius. G'night."

Smiling fondly at his godson's slurred speech, Sirius replied warmly, "Goodnight, Harry."

-l-r-

His bed was as warm and comfortable as a cotton cocoon, but Sirius struggled to surrender to sleep's elusive arms. The revelations of the day, and the need to plan for the next day, occupied his thoughts and kept him from relaxing enough to doze off. He even tried purposefully pushing all such thoughts from his mind, but that just made them more incessant. Eventually, he gave up on the prospect of defeating his own brain, and instead decided to succumb to the tide of his thoughts.

 _What's the best way to tell him about magic?_ Sirius wondered. He'd never before met a wizard or witch who didn't yet know about their heritage, let alone had the responsibility of introducing them to it. Briefly, he considered asking Dumbledore or McGonagall to visit. They both had plenty of experience introducing Muggle-borns to the world of magic, after all, which was – essentially – what Sirius would be doing the next day. Alas, the problem wa that he didn't know how Harry would react to their presence. While he knew the boy would be pleasant enough, if a bit taciturn, he was afraid that the combination of ground-breaking ideas and complete strangers would overwhelm the boy. And, even if it didn't, it would jeopardise the opportunity to be candid about James and Lily and, as a result, hopefully about Harry's childhood.

He played around with a variety of opening lines until he found one he was almost happy with. Eventually, however, sheer exhaustion caught up to the Animagus, and he slipped into a slumber that was plagued by nightmares that alternated between fixating on the terrors of Azkaban and solidifying his fears of how very easy it would be for him, the reckless teenager turned haunted ex-convict, to fail one of the only people he had left.

When he woke up several hours later, he had only one thought in his mind: no matter what weapons his subconscious mind chose to torture him with, he would _not_ fail his godson.


	6. Stepping Into A Whole New World

A/N: I'm so glad this chapter is finished. The last scene was the exception to the 'almost fully drafted' notice on my profile, so it's been hanging over my head for a while now. There's one my chapter – an epilogue – to go, so I'm hoping to edit that next week.

To the guest reviewer: Thanks! It's lovely to hear that. :)

Also, I'd just like to say happy birthday to a very special person. Sometime yesterday night, it struck me that it would be a nice idea to update something on your birthday, so I spent last night and this morning editing and rewriting almost frantically to get it done on time. I'm not going to name names here, but you know exactly who you are.

* * *

The next morning, Sirius awoke to the feeling of small hands rolling him over. Groaning in protest, he briefly considered just ignoring them; sleep beckoned him like a siren and, like an unwitting sailor, he longed to heed its call. Only the knowledge that it could be Harry attempting to stir him spurred him on to obediently, albeit slowly, blink his eyes open.

He found himself staring up into a house-elf's apprehensive eyes. Dim light snuck in around the navy curtains, bathing the room in pale sunshine, but he managed to see enough to recognise her as Darla, his late grandmother's favourite house-elf.

A curse word ran through his head as he remembered asking her to wake him just after sunrise to ensure that he would be up before Harry. Of course, at the time, he'd had no idea how poorly he would sleep; if he had, he would probably have just asked her to wake him when Harry left his new bedroom. It wouldn't have been nearly as effective, but it would have, at least, allowed him a few more hours of sleep. He rubbed his knuckles against his eyes before turning his attention to the elf.

"Sirius said to wake him up at sunrise," she said, her nervousness evident in her tone and expression as she shifted from foot to foot, wringing her hands like a tea towel. To Sirius' great relief, the usually composed house-elf quickly remembered her training, and her demeanour became much calmer. The way her eyes flickered about betrayed how unnerved she was by his sudden return after years of infamy, but the rest of her was utterly composed. The sight was a far cry from the snivelling, terrified slaves the Malfoy kept or the loyal parrots his own mother preferred. Her voice was much more confident and dignified when she continued, "Mister Harry is still sleeping. Breakfast will be ready when you are, sir."

 _Crap._ In the blur of the previous night, he had forgotten to tell the house-elves that Harry still wasn't ready to meet them. "I need you all to continue keeping hidden until I tell you otherwise. Harry doesn't know about magic yet, and seeing one of you probably isn't the best way to open up that conversation."

Her face contorted in shock. "Mister Harry doesn't know? Of course. Darla will warn the other house-elves to stay out of his way. Breakfast will be waiting on the table."

"Thank you," Sirius said. The house-elf disappeared with a loud _crack_ , and Sirius slowly stumbled out of bed. He groggily made his way to his ensuite and stepped into the shower's blissfully warm water.

-l-r-

Harry set his cutlery down on his empty plate. The remnants of bacon and eggs, and of the pancakes he'd followed it with, still clung to the surface. When he'd left his room that morning, he had waited around awkwardly in the hallway, knowing that he had no hope of finding the kitchen by himself but not wanting to disturb his godfather. In his experience, even people who told you to feel free to come to them about anything really only meant anything that didn't impose on them. Fortunately for him, his dilemma had been cut short by Sirius himself, who had emerged from his bedroom shortly afterwards and happily walked him down to the dining room while repeating his little tricks for remembering the way.

To Harry's surprise, he hadn't been asked to help prepare breakfast for them. When he had made his way to the cupboards to find something to cook, he had been met with an incredulous look and a fervent assurance that he wasn't expected to do the cooking. Indeed, the pair had found an array of breakfast food when they reached the dining room. Toast, bacon, sausages, eggs and pancakes had been spread out across the long table.

"This…"

"My grandfather has a team of – well, a team of cooks on retainer," Sirius had said, his eyes glittering with amusement. "We usually eat informally, but they wanted to make sure there would be something you liked. They'll calm back down again soon."

Amazed and more than a little awestruck at the sight, Harry had replied, "There's no way we can eat this much." His uncle and cousin had always eaten _a lot_ , but not even he and the three Dursleys could have put away a banquet of such size.

"Don't worry about it. We, ah, donate the leftovers."

Despite sensing that something was off about Sirius' demeanour, Harry had soon been distracted by the food. He had never tasted anything nearly as delicious as that feast. And his godfather had told him to eat as much as he liked!

So, as they both finished their meals, it was with no trace of lie or social politeness that Harry told Sirius, "That was amazing."

"Make sure you tell the cooks that when you meet them. They'll love you forever for it."

His casual words stunned Harry. How could someone's loyalty and affection be won by something as simple as a compliment? "I will."

"Have you finished eating? There are some things I'd like to show you." At Harry's nod, Sirius pushed himself away from the table and started walking away. When he realised that Harry wasn't following him, he turned back to see his godson gathering up their dinnerware. "You don't have to do that, Harry. They'll be much faster at it."

"I don't mind. It seems rude not to." As soon as the words left his mouth, he nervously glanced up at his godfather. He hadn't meant to sound like he was insulting the man, but his aunt and uncle would have scolded him for disrespecting them.

Fortunately for him, Sirius didn't seem at all perturbed by his words. "Alright, then," he said. "Just wait a minute, yeah? I'll show you this thing first, and then we can put the plates away."

-l-r-

Sirius leaned forward in the armchair he had perched himself in as he peered at his godson. The conversation starters he had practice the night before ran through his head like wild horses until he finally caught one and decided to ride with it. "Harry," he said, "the first thing you need to understand is that you are _not_ crazy. There are things in the world that simply don't make sense. It isn't crazy to experience something you can't explain. When you were a toddler, learning the alphabet would have seemed difficult and pointless. Now, it's easy and useful." He paused, and Harry nodded in agreement. "You've been seeing some things that don't seem to make sense, haven't you?"

"Yes," Harry replied. "Loads of things. And it's not just me, either. The Dursleys saw them too."

"Saw what?"

"My aunt cut off most of my hair, but it grew back overnight. Dudley tripped and stabbed me with scissors, and the cuts healed that same day. Sometimes, my cousin and his friends were chasing me and I just somehow wound up out of their reach – on a roof, on the other side of a fence, or on a street in a different part of town."

It was tempting to latch onto that tangent to see where it led; it spoke volumes about Harry's relationship with his cousin and, hopefully, suggested that the boy was beginning to trust him. But Sirius forced himself to focus on the reveal first; given how deeply entrenched magic was in the workings of Black Manor, explanations were more pressing than questions. "This is going to sound stupid, but I'm not sure how to break else this to you. Harry, magic is real."

His godson stared at him as if he were expecting a punchline. "Er – what?"

"Magic; it exists. Not everyone has it, but it's still real. Your aunt and uncle and cousin don't have it, but you do. And so do I."

The boy apparently decided to humour him, for he started to say, "My parents – "

"Were magical as well. Your father was from an old wizarding family, just like me, and your mother was from a non-magical one. We all went to the same boarding school to learn how to control our magic. I don't expect you to just believe this, of course, so," Sirius paused to pull his wand out of his pocket and point it at the empty fireplace, " _Incendio._ " Flames burst into being in front of their very eyes, but the Animagus' attention was focused on his godson as shock and a little bit of fear and a whole lot of admiration sprung up on his face. "Children aren't allowed wands until their eleventh birthday, but there are some things – flying, herbology, potions, and so forth – that we can explore before then."

"Magic is real," Harry murmured. " _Really_ real." He stared intently at the flickering flames before, suddenly, turning to Sirius and eagerly launching into a tirade of quick questions that had the older wizard wondering how he could even breathe. "What's herbology? And what do you mean by flying? Do you mean like birds do – with wings – or with brooms? Witches always fly brooms on the telly. Do wizards use them too? And – you said you went to school with my parents – what were they like? How did you meet?"

Sirius smiled down at him, glad that the boy seemed to have enough natural curiosity to make a good Marauder. No matter what he was like, Harry would automatically and irrevocably be one, but it was a relief to see that he might be disposed to it anyway. Bracing himself for a long conversation, Sirius decided to start at the very beginning and work his way forward from there. After all, there was no other way to ensure that Harry knew everything he had to – and _deserved_ to – know. "Herbology is the study of magical plants. Both witches and wizards use brooms. They were some of the best people I ever had the fortune of meeting. And as for how we met…"

-l-r-

The conversation lasted until well after lunch, by which point Harry knew the basics about magic, Hogwarts, the war, and what had really happened to his parents the night they died. Discovering that his aunt and uncle had lied about his parents' deaths infuriated him. How could they say they had died in a car crash when they had both willingly died for him? He understood, now, why they had never seemed to actually like him. He was well aware that they despised anything magical or imaginative, and he was both of those things. But lying about it? Surely they had known that he would one day find out the truth. So why would they lie about it?

There was still a lot that he didn't know or understand. There had been some things that Sirius had simply refused to talk about, and there were so many things that Harry had been _told_ but had never _seen_. He couldn't imagine understanding it all until he got the chance to see it for himself.

He had seen some of it, though. Sirius had introduced him to both the house-elves and his great-grandfather. The house-elves had been unsettling but almost aggressively welcoming, and it had explained why his godfather hadn't wanted him to clear their breakfast plates. Arcturus Black had been another matter entirely. Sophisticated and stately, he was the most intimidating man Harry had ever met. Still, he had been kind enough to him, and he had even shown him more magic, sending lights dancing across the room and turning handkerchiefs into animated stuffed toys.

"Be wary of him," Sirius warned Harry as soon as the older man left. "He likes you, and he is always polite unless he has a reason to be rude, but he always – _always_ – has an agenda. You're safe with him – he won't ever harm you – but he will try to make you think the same way he does. You don't have to worry about it yet, and he will never purposefully lead you stray, but you need to remember that his thoughts on what your best interests are won't always match what they actually are."

"I understand," he said.

"Good. Anyway, I was thinking that we could visit a few old friends of mine this afternoon before heading to Porquerolles, if that's alright with you."

Although he was nervous at the idea of meeting even more people who knew so much more than he did, Harry nodded.

"Great! We'll have to Apparate there. It's kind of hard to explain how it works, but it gets you from one place to another almost instantaneously. It can be extremely uncomfortable at first, but it's the quickest and easiest way of travelling somewhere."

"So it's like teleportation."

"I don't know what that means but, if that's what Apparation sounds like, sure."

-l-r-

'Unpleasant', Harry realised, didn't even begin to describe the discomfort of Side Along Apparation. When they finally touched down at the Burrow, he felt dizzy, and the distinct taste of bile was working its scouring way up his throat. Hoping desperately that he wouldn't vomit, he plonked himself down on the ground and bent his head between his legs so the blood could rush back to it.

Sirius, looking contrite, lowered himself to sit beside him. "Sorry, Harry. It's been so long since I've had to do it that way that I forgot just how bad it was."

Not trusting himself to talk yet, Harry just nodded.

"It does get better, though; I promise you that. And, when you feel up to moving, Arthur and Molly will have something to spruce you up again."

The pair sat in silence for a few minutes as Harry's light-headedness dissipated. "I'm alright now," he eventually said, and his godfather held out a hand to steady him as they climbed to their feet.

It was then that he noticed an owl swooping in towards them, appearing to be headed directly for Sirius. To the boy's surprise, however, the man didn't seem to be at all flustered by its appearance. Instead of ducking or darting away, he walked forward as if to greet it. "Er – Sirius? What – ?"

Harry watched, amazed, as the tawny bird landed on Sirius' shoulder and stuck its leg out like an offering. A small envelope was attached to the spindly limb with a piece of string, and Sirius casually untied it before ruffling the owl's feathers affectionately. It, having apparently finished its business with them, then flew off, and Sirius hurriedly ripped open the missive. "Wizards and witches send letters by owl," Sirius said, a little redundantly, as his gaze skimmed over the page. "This one is from an old friend. Do you remember me mentioning Remus Lupin? He's going to catch up with us at Ophelia's Retreat for a few days."

Harry did remember him. Best friend to his father and godfather, the man had been the next in line to take him in after Sirius. For some reason, however, he had been unable to or uninterested in doing so.

Yet he apparently wanted to meet him now.

They set off again, making their way up the long, winding path. Harry's attention was momentarily diverted by the haphazard house, which stood at the end of the dirt drive and whose rooms twisted around and jutted out like an old oak tree. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. His aunt would have called it shabby and his uncle would have called it disgraceful but, as they grew ever nearer to it, all he could think was that it looked rather splendid. "Do you think they'll like me?"

"You don't need to worry about that," Sirius replied, amusement colouring his tone. After a moment, however, he glanced over at his nervous godson and added, "They're going to love you, Harry."

"How can you be sure?"

"I know Arthur and Molly, and I've met the kids, and I know you."

"But – "

"Hey," Sirius cut in, kneeling down so that he was at Harry's level, "something that I learned over the years is that people like people who like themselves. Not too much, mind, although your mum would have accused both your dad and me of that. But still. If you're always anxious about whether or not people are going to like you, then they're not going to like you. The best way to make friends is to just be yourself without worrying about what other people think of you. You still won't be friends with everyone, but that's just as much about the people you're with as it is about you."

"What if the person you are isn't very likeable?"

"If you don't think you're a good person, make the decision to change that. Constantly choose to be good. But do it because _you_ want to be better, not because you want to be liked. That's why your mum hated your dad for so long; he tried to do good things when he was around her so she would notice him, but she didn't start to like him until we were almost seventeen and he finally started to do good things for himself." A haunted expression crossed his face, but he pressed forward. "Just be yourself, and you will find people who like you for that. But, Harry, you don't need to worry about fitting in; from what I've seen so far, you're both good and likeable. The Weasleys are both good and likeable, too, so I can't see there being a problem there."

After that, they continued to the house without further interruption; Harry's thoughts were busy assessing the wisdom of what Sirius had said, while Sirius was congratulating himself on a job well done. He didn't have much experience on the childrearing front; his childhood was more of a guide for what _not_ to do, and his godson had been a toddler more concerned with learning how to use the potty than dealing with low self-esteem. His heart soared with pride at the knowledge that his words seemed to have reduced Harry's nervousness.

"Sirius!"

Harry watched in shock as what looked to be a whole troupe of redheads emerged from the rickety house and ran towards them. Three young children launched themselves at Sirius, clutching at him with their freckled hands. Laughing, the man swept them all into a hug.

 _They just need a battle-cry,_ he thought bitterly as a brief flash of envy rushed through him. He was still trying to reconcile himself to everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, but part of him wished that _he_ was the one his godfather was hugging. Sirius had assured him that he was likeable, but it looked like the man would much rather be raising one of those other kids.

"Is that him?" one of the boys asked, pulling himself away from the raven-haired man to peer at Harry with unbridled curiosity.

"Yes, this is my godson, Harry." To Harry's surprise, Sirius pried himself from the remaining children and slung his arm around Harry's shoulders.

 _Maybe he really doesn't think I'm worthless,_ Harry thought, looking up at his godfather as he examined the man's face for any signs of pretence. _Maybe he really does like me._ His chest filled up with warmth at the unprecedented gesture.

"Harry, this is the family I was telling you about. This pair is Fred and George. Don't worry if you can't tell them apart at first; they like tricking people anyway. This one's Ron – he's your age, so you'll be in the same year at Hogwarts. That's Ginny over there. Charlie's the one standing next to her. And other _there_ – yes, _there_ – is Percy and Bill. Percy's the one with the glasses. Arthur and Molly – their parents – are over there. And the man with them is Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Albus Dumbledore, in stark contrast to the redheads that surrounded them, had a long white beard and a pair of twinkling pale blue eyes that seemed to see right through Harry. Unnerved, Harry acknowledged Sirius with a nod before turning his attention back to the other children.

His gaze had flicked between them as they were introduced and pointed out but, despite his determination to remember their names, he had already completely forgotten most of them. Shyly, he rose onto his tiptoes to sheepishly whisper in Sirius' ear, "I don't think I'll be able to remember their names."

"That's alright too," Sirius replied, his response just as quiet. "Just ask them if you forget. They'll all understand, and everybody but Fred and George – the twins – will tell you the truth. Now, I need to talk to Dumbledore about some things. Will you be fine with the kids? I'll be outside with you the whole time."

Determined not to let Sirius, the one person who seemed to genuinely like him, down, Harry nodded resolutely.

"Good boy. And you're always welcome to hang out with me if there's a problem or if you get tired of playing."

As Sirius walked away, all of the other kids swarmed Harry like locusts. The only girl wouldn't meet his eyes, and the one with glasses was whispering something to her as he held her hand, but the others were all focused solely on Harry.

"I'm Charlie," one of them said, before running through the introductions all over again. "You're Harry Potter, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. Sirius had explained that he was something of a celebrity to the wizarding world, but he didn't know what to think about the sudden attention. In the past, attention had always meant bad things for him. While these kids seemed much more benign than Dudley, he couldn't help but wait for the other shoe to drop.

"Can we see your scar?" one of the younger boys asked.

"I – "

"Don't ask him that, Ron," the tallest one interjected. "That's rude."

"How's it rude?"

"It's – "

The twins looked at one another before saying simultaneously, "Let him talk."

Six sets of eyes suddenly turned to him. To his surprise, the seventh remained fixated on its owner's pink shoes.

"I don't mind," Harry said, brushing his fringe out of his face so that they could all see the lightning bolt scar that his schoolmates had always teased him about. The Weasley children all – the girl included – stared at it in awe. After a few moments, his self-consciousness returned, and he let the hair fall back down to cover it again.

"Do you play chess?" Charlie, the one who had first spoken to him, asked.

"A little."

"Bill has been teaching Ron how to play it. If you want, you and I can play a doubles' match against the two of them."

"I'm not very good," Harry warned him, but Charlie made a dismissive noise as he waved off the warning.

"That doesn't matter," the boy who had asked to see his scar – Ron – told him. "I'm not either."

Harry beamed at them. He _really_ wasn't much good at it, and he didn't know how a doubles' match would work, but it felt nice to be included. As the eight of them marched inside, the adults following dutifully behind them, he wondered if that was how it felt to have friends.


	7. The Girl with the Unusual Name

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has come along with me for this ride. I loved reading your thoughts and reviews, and it was so much fun to explore this scenario. And thank you to my incredible brother, who immediately answered my "Can I have your quick opinion on this thing?" text with a phone call despite the fact that he's busy and isn't even betaing this story. He's a gem.

To the guest reviewer: Thank you. I'm really glad you liked Arcturus' cameo. Even though Harry and Sirius moved to France, I love the thought of Arcturus trying to prepare Harry to deal with Slytherin double talk despite having accepted that the chances of anyone raised by Sirius ending up there were slim.

* * *

Platform 9 ¾ was even better than Harry had imagined it would be. Slowing to a stop, he looked around with wide eyes, feasting on the magnificent sight. The platform was bustling with activity as parents said goodbye to their children and students were reunited with one another after a summer spent apart. He was no stranger to wizarding cities or high traffic tourist destinations, but this was something else entirely.

He had been looking forward to this day for _years_. The countless stories Sirius had regaled him with had made him yearn to see Hogwarts, to go to the school where his parents had met and quarrelled and fallen in love, where Sirius had created a family for himself, where Remus had found somewhere to truly belong. It was as if going there, and following in their footsteps, would somehow lead him closer to them and their memory. Nerves tingled in his chest at the prospect of living away from his godfather for so long, but they were easily overwhelmed by the excitement that was bubbling up inside him like water being brought to the boil. This was _it,_ and he was _so_ ready for it. "This is _wicked_."

Sirius laughed. "It is, isn't it? Just wait until you get there." The older wizard knelt down and, resting one hand against the base of the birdcage they had bought mere weeks prior, said, "You have fun, now, won't you? Make sure you write to me – about anything you want, no matter how serious or trivial or embarrassing it might seem. And don't leave me in suspense; send a letter with Hedwig to let me know which house you've been sorted into as soon as you get to your dorm. And let Fred and George know if anyone bothers you."

"Percy said to tell him." Harry reminded him, "He's a prefect this year."

"Go to Percy first," Sirius conceded. "Then, if he can't help _officially_ , tell Fred and George so they can sort it out."

"And don't get caught," Harry said, parroting back one of the main pieces of advice his godfather had given him over the years.

Sirius smirked. "Exactly. Get up to trouble, not into it."

Harry threw himself at his godfather, who reflexively encased him in a warm embrace. "I'm going to miss you."

"You too, Harry. But I am so, so proud of you. And I know that you're going to love it there."

"Do you remember all of the secret passageways?"

Nodding against his chest, Harry rattled the entrances and passwords off like a checklist, whispering to keep any passers-by from overhearing.

"Good job," Sirius commended him, but Harry noticed that he sounded sad. "I'll teach you the ones that lead out of school when you're thirteen, if you haven't worked them out for yourself beforehand."

After a few moments of silent hugging, Harry admitted, "I'm nervous." It was daunting to confess things like that to the brave and self-confident Animagus, even though he knew that his guardian never judged him for it, but he couldn't imagine leaving without owning up to it.

"You're going to be brilliant," Sirius reassured him, his voice earnest and impassioned. "You already are. If people can't see that, then they don't matter; not in the long run. You have as much right to be there as they do, and you have as much right to an opinion as they do. Besides, I'll tell you a secret: most of them are as nervous as you are. And you won't always be able to tell who's nervous just by looking at them. There have been times when I've been panicking internally about how to explain something to you but you haven't noticed because you haven't been looking for it. Don't ever feel like you're the only one who's nervous."

"I love you, Sirius."

"I love you too. Always have, always will." Sirius held him tighter for a few moments before releasing him from his grip. "You should get on before all the compartments are full. Go find those Weasleys of yours, yeah?"

"I'll write as soon as the feast's over," Harry promised. "I'll ask Hedwig to find my dormitory and wait for me there so I can send her right away."

"And, if there's ever a problem, I can come to fetch you or to help sort things out."

-l-r-

Sirius watched as Harry made his way towards the gaggle of Weasleys mulling about by the train doors and, with their help, hoisted his trunk onto the vehicle. As Harry paused on the steps to give Sirius a happy wave and a beaming smile, Sirius was struck anew by a sense of nostalgia. He had, over time, gotten much better at separating Harry from his father, to the point where the comparisons had become fleeting statements of fact rather than prescriptive expectations. It was, however, impossible for him to watch his godson board the train _without_ fondly remembering that messy-haired boy, so similar physically and yet so different temperamentally, that he had met on that very same train twenty years prior.

As he grinned back at Harry, waving happily, his only hope was that his godson would get to experience all of the experience and love that the Marauders had had without having to endure the pain and fear of their later years.

-l-r-

When they had settled into a compartment with the twins and their friend Lee, Harry and Ron set about nervously discussing the topic of which house they thought they'd be sorted into. They had exhausted the topic many times before, of course, but the fact that it would be happening _that night_ brought a new level of anticipation to the conversation. The discussion had always been in the abstract before, as if it were happening to far-off people in a faraway place and time. Just being on the train had given it new meaning and urgency.

Swallowing the last bite of his chocolate frog, Harry peered down at his new card. Amala Gadhavi, the inventor of the time turner. _Awesome_ , he thought. "I still reckon you'll get Gryffindor. Where else would you go?"

"Dunno. _They_ ," Ron said disdainfully as he jerked his head towards his brothers, "bet Ginny that I'll get Hufflepuff."

"There's nothing wrong with being a Hufflepuff," Harry reassured him, remembering what his cousin Tonks had said about it. According to her, that house had its problems like any other – she'd told him that it contained some of the most insular cliques she had ever seen – but it also had some of the loveliest and loyalest people she'd ever met. "Still reckon you'll be a Gryffindor, though."

"Want a bean?" Fred butted in, holding one out to Ron. The twins tolerated their younger brother's presence as it tended to be part and parcel of spending time with Harry, but they still constantly looked for ways to tease or prank him. He was, or so they had told Harry when he'd questioned them about it once, just so much fun to provoke that they would be remiss in their brotherly duties if they didn't pick on him every once in a while.

"I _saw_ George put it in his mouth and then take it back out again. No way am I eating it."

"Drat. And I was keeping such a straight face, too. It's vomit-flavoured, you know; we were hoping to go for a double whammy."

"It was impressive," Lee agreed. "I almost thought you'd accidentally picked up a corn-flavoured one instead."

"I need to go to the loo," Ron said, apparently deciding to ignore the older boys' antics. "Want to come, Harry?"

Fred snorted. "What are you, a pair of girls?"

"No," Ron replied defensively. "I just thought Harry might enjoy getting away from you lot for a bit."

"I'll come. We need to get changed into our robes anyway, and you lot probably want some time to plan your prank in peace."

"It's already planned," Lee said proudly, before hitting himself on the forehead. "Forget I said that."

Laughing, Harry assured him, "It's alright. We're not going to tell anyone. Besides, we already knew."

They grabbed their robes before heading out to find the nearest toilet. Despite Harry's affection for the older boys, it _was_ rather nice to spend some time away from them. Their ability to make everything into some sort of dramatic production was hilarious and endearing, but it could get a little tiring. Even just the brief walk with Ron was reinvigorating. Harry couldn't imagine how chaotic it must have been in the older boys' dormitory or, even more so, in their minds; he could temporarily excuse himself from the madness if he wanted to, but the twins' whole existence seemed to revolve around playing off one another. It was like being around two Siriuses who were both on a constant sugar high.

"Sorry mate, but I'm going first," Ron said when they reached the toilets to find that there was only one unoccupied male toilet. He quickly darted into the small room before Harry could reply.

Harry stood around awkwardly until Ron re-emerged, wearing his school robes and looking much more comfortable. "Your turn, mate. Sorry about that."

"No problem," Harry replied as he entered the recently vacated room. Although he and Sirius both preferred Muggle clothes, he had gotten used to wearing robes over the years, so he made quick work of relieving himself and getting changed. He was soon back in the aisle with Ron.

Ron immediately started walking back in the direction they'd come from. "I still can't believe we're finally going to Hogwarts. I still remember when Bill first left for school. At least, I think it was Bill… It might have been Charlie; it kind of bleeds together, you know."

"It would. I guess that's the good thing about growing up with Dudley; I never had to worry about mixing people up."

"Do you ever wish you had a sibling?"

"I used to," Harry replied, twisting one of his sleeves in his palm. His time with the Dursleys wasn't something that he liked to talk about. Sirius had, over time, learned almost everything about it, but Harry generally tried to avoid discussing it with the Weasleys. "When I lived with my aunt and uncle, I wished I had a brother or sister I could get along with. But I don't need to anymore; I have Sirius now."

"I sometimes wish I had less siblings," Ron admitted. "I wouldn't want any of them to, you know, not be around, but it'd be nice for there to be less of us."

Harry frowned as he spotted a girl wandering along the corridor. "Look," he whispered, nodding his head towards her. "What's she doing?"

"How am I supposed to know? Looks barmy, though. What d'you think she's looking at her feet for?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe she's looking for something?"

They both watched her almost expectantly. The girl had dark skin and a thick head of bushy brown hair that seemed to kink out at every angle, and she was staring intently at the ground in front of her as she slowly made her way towards them. She was also wearing her school robes, and, due to the absence of any house colours, appeared to also be a first year.

"Maybe she dropped something," Ron suggested, sniggering.

The black-haired boy dug his elbow into his side. "Be nice," he admonished him, before stepping forward to ask her, "Are you alright?"

She looked up in surprise. "I'm fine. A boy lost his toad and I said I'd help him look for it. I was hoping it would be a bit of a bonding exercise, but we went off in different directions so we could cover ground faster and it's taking a lot longer than I expected. It's amazing how many places there are that toads can hide on a train."

"We'll help you. I'm Harry, and this is Ron. What's your name?"

"Hermione Granger. Are you first years, too?"

"Yeah," Ron said. He hesitated, glancing at Harry before half-heartedly asking, "Which house do you want to be in?"

"I'm not entirely certain. They all sound wonderful, don't they? I wouldn't suit Slytherin because they don't like Muggle-borns, but they are supposed to be awfully high achievers. I'm hardworking enough to be in Hufflepuff, I think, but I think I'd be too much of an introvert for them. I will probably end up in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor; I love reading and learning things, but I've often been told that I'm too outspoken for my own good, and that seems to be a rather Gryffindor trait, don't you agree?"

"I guess."

"What about you? Where would you like to be sorted?"

"Gryffindor," the boys chorused.

"Well," she said, "I suppose it would be nice if we were all in the same house. It would be wonderful to have people you had met on the train be sorted with you, wouldn't it? Neville – that's the boy who owns the toad – said he had no idea where he'll go, so I'm not sure about him, but we might all end up in Gryffindor together."

"Brilliant," Ron said dryly.

Harry, however, was more inclined to give her a chance. She was certainly outspoken and seemed a little overbearing, but he was used to that by now; you had to be if you were to manage around the Weasleys. Besides, Sirius had told him that the other first years were probably going to be just as nervous about fitting in as he was, and he rather thought that that was the case there. Probably more so, really; he already had a bunch of friends at school, and, from what she was saying, it sounded like she didn't. He wasn't sure that he would ever want to be _close_ friendswith her, but it wouldn't hurt to be nice. "That does sound great," Harry said, and his agreement sounded, even to his own ears, much more genuine than Ron's had.

The girl with the strange name looked a little surprised when she turned to him, and Harry felt immediately that he had made the right decision. He smiled tentatively at her, and she beamed at him in return.

"How do you pronounce your name again?" he asked.

"Her-my-oh-nee."

"Her-my-oh-nee," he sounded back, resolved to remember it.

"Exactly. It's a bit unusual, but it's not that difficult once you get the hang of it."

Acquaintances thus made, the three first years wandered off in search of the slippery toad as they chatted about houses and family backgrounds and the classes they were the most interested in, not realising that that was the start of a strong, enduring, and, indeed, beautiful friendship.


End file.
